


An Encounter of the Patrolling Kind

by KitaenSilva



Series: Gensokyo Encounters [3]
Category: Original Work, Touhou Project
Genre: F/M, Interspecies Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-16 19:00:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 52,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11835015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitaenSilva/pseuds/KitaenSilva
Summary: ((Please read all previous parts of the series beforehand!!))Finding these experiences to be of an unusual nature and difficult to explain, the author starts treating these events much more seriously just in case there's more to them than meets the eye.Almost immediately thrust into a tense face-to-face with someone most certainly dangerous - and having nothing short of words to defend himself - the author relies on liberal application of honesty, aiming for what may be his last chance to make friends in this world.It may be more than anything he could have imagined or hoped for - both good and bad in nature.





	An Encounter of the Patrolling Kind

**Author's Note:**

> This entry is one that is very awkward and difficult to put in the public eye, for many reasons.
> 
> I do not want to elaborate outside of the entry's context, but this entry is EXTREMELY important to me, despite causing me a lot of problems.
> 
> I will figure out how to phrase this note a bit more clearly at a later time.
> 
> These events are but dreams of the author, from the perspective of you readers...
> 
> ...please understand that things are very, very different from my own perspective.

I’ve had my third experience of Gensokyo, albeit extremely short-lived as it was… 

 

I woke up in a crumpled heap on the ground. After collecting myself by sitting up and dusting the detritus from the back of my clothes, I looked around before me and recognized the clearing where I met my demise at the hands of Aya when trying to bring a batch of cookies to Momiji. I didn’t see my bag anywhere, this time.

 

I heaved a heavy sigh.  **“Well that seems to have been a massive failure. I at least hope she enjoyed the cookies--”**

 

**“I did, yes,”** said a woman’s voice somewhere just out of my peripheral,  **“but more importantly, how are you here? I watched Shameimaru-san turn you to dust on the wind.”**

 

I blinked and turned to face my addressee . This was the first time I had been directly interacted with mere moments after waking up, so I was groggy and still trying to process basic information.

 

**“I’m not really sure, to be quite hon--”** I started to say, but my train of thought was derailed horribly by new information acquired from turning to face whomever was speaking. It was none other than Momiji herself, standing there a short distance away looking down at me seated on the ground with clear curiosity painted on her face, while waving a hand fan at herself to ward off the summer heat.  **“Oh! Uh… good a-afternoon, Inubashiri-san!”** I instinctively gave a small nod of my head to greet her.

 

She politely dipped her head, very subtly, in return greeting. Then she looked at me expectantly.

 

**“Oh, right. Sorry. Um… I really don’t know how I'm back here. Currently, my only hypothesis is that I'm not** **_actually_ ** **here and that I am a visiting dreamer - this being my third time here, actually. Gensokyo works like that sometimes, right?”** I said, returning to my reply for her inquiry. Her fan stopped in place and her eyes widened slightly. It seemed I had only fanned the flames of her curiosity, which could be both a blessing and a curse.

 

**“So you’re an outsider, a dreamer,** **_and_ ** **possess foreknowledge of Gensokyo. A very** **_particularly_ ** **rare occurrence indeed.”** she said as her fan was put back to work, a subtle smile now alight upon her lips.  **“Well, one thing’s for sure… now I get to thank you - both for the cookies, and giving Shameimaru-san quite a scare. It was a sight to behold, her scrambling for excuses and all that!”** she said, and her fan went to rest upon her nose, hiding the lower half of her face as her eyes closed and a merry snicker escaped her. Her tone took on one of someone mimicking a different person.  **“I didn’t mean to kill him, I swear! It was only one bullet, and not nearly enough power to even do any damage! He should have dodged anyway!”** She dropped the mimicking tone.  **“I had never seen something surprise Shameimaru-san quite that way before, and it’s a memory I will take with me to the grave.”**

 

**“Eh? I don’t know what happened except that I thought I was killed, so I really didn’t mean to scare anyone, but if uh... you think it was entertaining then I suppose it’s more than worth it... Eheh…”** I said to her without really thinking, and then peered at her a little awkwardly as I processed what I had said. She looked at me from behind her fan, a swipe of her thick lashes betraying that my statement caught her off guard. Then her eyes closed once again as a purer laugh erupted from behind the fan. 

 

**“Ahaha! That quaint little bookstore girl let slip that you were more interested in tengu than what you had let on after we had gotten her to stop wailing for five seconds, but I didn't think she meant** **_this_ ** **! Hahaha~!”** she said between her mirth. I was a little hurt, yet I couldn't help but burn this moment of her entertained laughter into memory.  **“Ohh, sorry sorry, I don't mean to offend! Please understand, this truly is an incredibly odd situation.”** she said, waving a hand as she apologized. I already understood, even if she said nothing. I also gestured to show that it wasn’t an issue.

 

**“No worries, I somewhat know already how strange it is for a human to like a tengu. I’m also trying to separate what I** **_think_ ** **I know of Gensokyo and the residents of this land, and what is actually true of this place. Like… just because the stories depict you one way doesn't mean that's how you actually are, so I try to behave accordingly. Um… you're uh.., a bit of a special case, though. For me, at least.”** I said, trailing off into silence as her ears stood tall from my final statement.

 

**“Oh…?”** she said, her fan raising slightly,  **“What stories do they tell of me out there beyond the border that have you so interested in this rather mediocre wolf tengu?”**

 

**“M… mediocre??”** I exclaimed louder than I had any desire to, and looked around to make sure I hadn't caused a disturbance. **“Sorry, I didn't mean to say that so loudly… um… Inubashiri-san, I don't think of you as mediocre. Even though I know nothing about who you actually are, you're standing there, in the flesh… and you're quite the amazingly beautiful lady.”**

 

**“Ah! Well! You're rather bold, aren't you?”** she responded, her ears tall once again as a white rolling wave of fur swished to either side behind her. She was making it more of a point to keep her fan stationed squarely in front of her face now.

 

**“Er… not… exactly? It’s... more that I try to be honest to myself and others.”** I said with a shrug.  **“If I like you, I’ll tell you. If I dislike you, I'll tell you. Communication is an essential part of living, especially with those one considers important.”** I then smiled brightly to her.  **“It just so happens that I really like you, and wish to learn who you truly are as a person.”**

 

Her tail twitched broadly behind her several times and her gaze wandered to at least three different elsewheres before her brow furrowed and she looked squarely at me with a sharp intensity that may have been meant to drill a hole into the libraries of my mind. I found myself unexpectedly lost in her eyes - a pair of sparkling, brilliant rubies of a red so pure that I had no trouble seeing the colour. They contrasted wonderfully with her alabaster hair. Suddenly she sighed very loudly and snapped her fan closed, revealing a brilliant blush and soft, uncertain lips. Her brow had unfurrowed and she was looking at me oddly.

 

**“What a strange, silly man. Stand up and dust yourself off, this has become rather awkward for me.”** she said and offered a hand to help me up. I gently slipped my palm to hers, and she hoisted me up… where I discovered that even including her footwear, I was undeniably taller than her. I smiled lightly and nodded my thanks, catching a peek into her eyes as she smiled back, this time with lips not hidden behind a fan. I stood quietly for a moment, burning this fine woman’s smile to memory as well, then I became overly aware of the fact that my hand was still within hers. Heat rushed to my cheeks and I lightly tugged my palm from hers. Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out from the boughs of a nearby tree.

 

**“Wow, that even had** **_my_ ** **heart racing and it had nothing to do with me! I'm sold! Momiji, you should keep him!”** the voice belted out into the clearing with a tone that could be mocking or sarcastic, but not enough to be sure about the mockery or sarcasm even existing in her words.

 

Momiji’s ears first stood taller than they had been before, her blush wildly intensified, then her expression soured to one of deep annoyance as her ears dropped flat. The soft swishing sound of her tail against the back of her skirt also stopped abruptly, and the sound’s absence made me realize it had existed in the first place. This new sound suddenly held vast importance to me, and I was genuinely sad it had departed with the announced arrival of--

 

**“Shameimaru-san. Do not reduce my visitor to dust again, he has only just arrived.”** Momiji said in a very displeased, defensive tone as she looked toward the location of the voice.

 

**“Hahaha~! After what I just saw and heard, I can't even be mad. Go on, don't let me ruin the mood, things were just getting good! I really thought you two were gonna** **_kiss_ ** **after that, it was incredible!”** Aya teased and guffawed from some unseen spot in a nearby tree. Momiji turned to look back at me with a surprised expression and deep blush.

 

**“W-were you??”** she asked under her breath with an intensity that may well have set me on fire if she had such power over conflagration.

 

**“Wha? N-no! Were** **_you_ ** **?”** I returned, then said under my breath,  **“N-not that I would object…”**

 

I somehow didn't realize that no matter how quietly I had said that last bit, her sharp ears still would have heard it. Her tail flapped loudly twice and her ears shot upward once more as she whispered loudly, her hands balled and raised before her.

 

**“Y-you! Don't be foolish!”** she told me. I whispered back.

 

**“I’m not! I mean… I'd feel more comfortable waiting on something like that until after I have been more acquainted with you, but it’s not like I'd turn down a kiss from the woman I'm attracted to…!”** I could feel the heat rushing to my cheeks, and she seemed just as mentally discombobulated by this turn of events as I was. Her tail flapped more, and she hit me in the shoulder. Hard enough to hurt a bit and get the point across.  _ Shut up _ , she was saying. Aya continued to have a giggle up in the tree.

 

**“Oohoohoo~! I have seen a lot of things in my life, but this… this takes the cake.”** Aya said as she descended from the tree with a flap of her coal wings and crossed her arms coyly, sauntering over to Momiji and I. Her expression put me on my guard, so I turned to face her… as did Momiji. The crow woman leaned in close to look me in the eyes. I looked right back into hers.  **“Boy, is it true that my dearest Momiji here is the apple of your eye, then? Even though you know nothing of her?”**

 

**“Yes ma’am. Though I hope to learn more about her before I declare anything further than attraction and interest.”** I said easily since I didn’t have to think much on my answer, making it a point to keep my eyes locked to hers. Momiji’s tail swished loudly beside me and I could feel her eyes drill a hole into the side of my head. What Aya was doing was a challenge of my will, and with pride as my sin, I was not keen on bending to someone else’s will. I may have been a little too steadfast though, as Aya’s eyes widened and she straightened up, then glanced at Momiji, her coy smirk gone.

 

**“Well then. Momiji?”** she said. I continued to watch Aya closely.

 

**“Ah? What is it?”** the wolf tengu said, clearly not expecting Aya’s advance to round on her as well.

 

**“Don't be a dolt. What do you think of the human?”** Aya said, very pointedly, jerking her chin in my direction. Suddenly, I felt that my life was no longer in my own hands, and I couldn't help but look over at Momiji, hopeful that whatever she said next wouldn't cut my visit short. Momiji looked at me, and contemplated. Then, her tail gave a simple flap and she smiled.

 

**“Well, I like to think I’ve gotten this far by being honest, and I would be a liar if I said I wasn't uh…”** she blushed and trailed off, then visibly steeled herself, looking me square in the face.  **“Ahem. If you can be so straightforward, I guess I had best do the same in kind.”** she said to me with a smile and turned to face Aya directly. **“I'm very interested in this one, Shameimaru-san. He’s… not someone I intend to let go of very easily.”** she said… but her whole face turned red at her own words and any more she had intended to say apparently didn’t survive the trip from brain to tongue. Aya’s reaction was entirely unexpected and only further halted Momiji’s ability to continue - she reeled as though Momiji had just slapped the crow right on the nose.

 

**“W-well… now I feel like quite a boob.”** she said, also blushing for reasons unknown.  **“I um…”** she paused, considering her next words carefully, before continuing,  **“Well, here is where I apologize for my rudeness. I’m sorry for interrupting what was apparently an uh… important moment for the both of you.”** Aya said, then bowed slightly to Momiji. The wolf straightened and attempted to clarify. Loudly at first, but quieter with each thing she said… and the quieter she got, the lower her head and ears went.

 

**“D-don't misunderstand! I want to converse with him longer… and perhaps enjoy some tea… it was more than a little concerning to have seen him disappear once and for some reason I don't want it to happen again…”**

 

Aya’s expression slowly became one of complex amusement. **“I understand plenty, don’t you worry. At least let me borrow him soon for an interview, I really am just** ** _dying_** **to know how he’s come back from the gates of the Netherworld.”** Momiji furrowed her brow defiantly and launched a retort.  
  
**“I know well enough that if you ‘borrow’ him that he won’t be returned intact.”** Momiji took a step and put herself between me and Aya.  
  
**“U-um… I’m truly flattered and grateful for the defense…”** I said quietly to Momiji, and leaned to the side to peer at Aya from over the wolf’s shoulder, speaking louder, **“...to be quite honest, I’m really not opposed to being interviewed, though being put on the spot makes me very nervous, so I would be rather assured by Inubashiri-san’s accompaniment if that’s um… alright?”** Aya blinked and looked at me with an odd, blank expression, and Momiji turned slightly to look at me curiously from the corner of her eye. **“I… don’t know what sort of content I would be able to provide for the Bunbunmaru, but if you think I’d make for an interesting article, I see no reason to refuse?”**  
  
Aya stared at me, then looked at Momiji. Then back to me. Then back to Momiji - whom was strangely grinning in triumph. Aya put her hands on her hips with a sigh. **“You are perhaps the strangest human to enter this land in a** ** _very_** **long time. Now I know why Momiji seems to favour you.”**  
  
**“F-favour?”** Momiji said, her expression darkening, showing a clear mental scramble for stable denial and rebuttal.  
  
**“Yes, favour. You can’t tell me that were it anyone else, you wouldn’t have sent them packing or run them through with your blade a long while ago. I can see plain as day that your interest in this man is well placed, but don’t let it get too far… he** ** _is_** **just a human after all.”**  
  
**“Um…”** I raised a hand to interject before Momiji could fumble anything she might say next. **“I’m not gonna lie…. I never asked or wanted to be human in the first place, this is simply the hand I was dealt. If I’d had any say at all, I would have most definitely been something other than a human. I feel that I would have been more fitting as a kitsune, or a poltergeist… but at the same time, if I had been born as either of those, I don’t think Inubashiri-san would have even given me the time of day.”** I lowered my hand and looked over at Momiji for a bit of reassurance. She had turned to look at me with a very odd, somewhat concerned or bothered expression. **“At the moment, at least… I feel grateful to have been born human - it’s just permitted me some unexpected memories I think I will treasure for whatever amount of time remains of my life.”**  
  
Momiji’s tail suddenly started swishing rapidly to either side and even though she was now intentionally looking away from me, I could practically feel the heat radiating from her face. Even Aya turned a few shades of red and she tried to laugh it off. **“Ahaha, you may be right about a kitsune having likely been a more fitting species. You’ve got a tongue of silver and the cunning to apply it in at least** ** _one_** **way that makes a lady tremble - let’s just hope that you’re not a** ** _trickster_** **like those lousy foxes, though, because I might come to like you after all if you’re as honest as you seem!”** Aya chuckles and approaches Momiji, saying something quietly into her ear so that I couldn’t quite hear. All I know is that Momiji’s tail and ears went rigid for a moment and the wolf suddenly looked as though she was going to clobber the crow right in the chops, but Aya backstepped a few times before alighting upon her wings and taking to the air. **“Ta-ta, kiddos~! Please do let me know when you’re available for that interview - and whether or not I should include mention of one… or** ** _two_** **new residents in the article~!”**  
  
**“Get out of here you... irritating, overgrown goose!”** Momiji suddenly shouted very loudly and hopped forward, drawing her sword and slashing through the air in Aya’s direction, sending a line of round, bluish bullets after the crow, who just laughed merrily and dodged them all with ease before flying out of sight over the treetops. I stood in place and looked over at Momiji, whom seemed to be deeply perturbed.  
  
**“U-um… Inubashiri-san? Are you… okay?”** I asked, taking care to not seem like I was approaching her, lest she turn that drawn blade against me.  
  
**“Just… give me a few moments.”** she responded with an agitated tone, seeming to scan the sky with eyes and ears.  
  
**“Y-yes ma’am…”** I said calmly and stuffed my hands into my pockets.  
  
**“You don’t have to call me ‘ma’am’, either.”** she said, and sighed as she returned her blade to the large saya fastened against the small of her back, above her tail.  
  
**“Alright. Uh… Inubashiri-san?”** I addressed inquisitively, judging if she preferred I call her as such. She turned around to look at me again, perhaps a little upset. **“I’m sorry for having embarrassed you in front of a colleague like that…”**  
  
She blinked. **“Colleague? That woman is more of an agitating acquaintance than a colleague or friend. And you didn’t embarrass me… you’re very uh… how do I put it…?”** she said, walking over toward me as she contemplated.  
  
**“Stubborn? Thickheaded?”** I offered as possible completions to her statement.  
  
**“No no. Well, maybe stubborn - you made Aya back down, which was yet another thing I had never seen happen before - but… hmm…”** she stopped once she was standing in front of me again. **“Flattering, perhaps. It wasn’t the word I was looking for, but it’s close enough. You speak in a way that makes me feel valued and complimented - I like that, but don’t get a big head over it because it will only get you so far.”** she said, a smile returning to her lips. I couldn’t help but to smile back. Then she laughed, and as the tension of what just happened was washed away by her merriment, I could only laugh with her. We continued like so for several moments, recounting segments of what had just happened to further our own amusement. By the time we had our fill of laughter, our cheeks were sore and we had started to walk together, the clearing already far behind us. She looked over at me as we strolled. **“You are a very fun human - a welcome respite to my daily patrols. Do you have a name? You seem to know mine, but we have yet to actually be introduced.”**  
  
**“Oh! Uh, sorry about that, it had completely slipped my mind. My name’s** [omitted for privacy] **, but I’m much more accustomed to the name of Kitaen Silva. Please call me Kit.”** I gave her an informal, subtle bow as we walked.  
  
**“Inubashiri Momiji - as you already knew.”** she said, also offering an informal bow. **“It’s alright for you to use my first name, I think. I like you more than I like that pest we were dealing with earlier, and while I didn’t exactly give her permission to use my first name…”**  
  
**“Hee… I feel privileged, especially since I find your name to be very pretty, much like my favourite season.”** I said, and looked upward to see if any of the trees were changing colour, not that I would be able to tell very easily. Nevertheless, I knew enough to see that it was summer. **“Which at the moment… it is not presently said season.”**  
  
She suddenly sighed very audibly, which caught my attention, and when I looked at her, she was turning red and her tail was merrily swinging from side to side again. **“I don’t want to ask you to put less sugar in your words, but you’re making it awfully difficult to have a normal conversation with you when you keep saying things that fill my stomach with butterflies.”**  
  
**“You told me ‘no’ twice - at least let me bring you enough happiness to make up for the resulting despair Kosuzu ushered me through to earn that 'yes'. And the disappointment in myself when I woke up at home after Shameimaru-san killed me, cutting my encounter with you very short.”** I said, then paused for a moment. What I was saying made sense to _me_ , but might not make sense to her. **“Well, now that I’m here, laughing and walking through the woods with you, I’m very glad Kosuzu gave me the push to come up here that day. And I guess if Shameimaru-san hadn’t killed me in front of you, perhaps you wouldn’t have been curious enough to engage me earlier… I should probably make time to thank both of them soon.**  
  
She looked at me very strangely as I spoke, then seemed to descend into thought. I kept pace with her and took care to not bother her for a while - I don’t appreciate being interrupted when I’m thinking, so I try to afford my friends the peace to think when I know they’re mentally occupied. Eventually, she looked over at me again.  
  
**“I find it very odd that you’re grateful to Shameimaru-san for killing you. Normally, a person would be angry, disturbed, or fearful - yet you seemed completely unfazed by it, like your death didn’t even matter. You didn’t react to Shameimaru-san - rather, she seemed more disturbed than you.”** she finally stated, revealing her contemplations.  
  
**“Well… honestly, I’m not afraid of dying. I mean, to me, my position here in Gensokyo right now is as a dreamer - I’m not actually here as anything more than uh… I guess an astral projection of sorts. So even if I die here, chances are that it means my consciousness will simply return to my body in the outside world, and at worst, I’ll simply wake up. But even in the outside world, I’m just not afraid of death or dying. I’ve… already died once before, and the peace I felt when it happened was so powerful that I can’t even say I understand why it’s something to be scared of. There have been many, many times where I have even** ** _wanted_** **to just… stop living.”** I tried to give her a smile, but it didn’t quite come out right. I shrugged. **“I might seem alright on the outside,”** I said, and patted my torso a few times, **“But…. inside, I am a very broken human who only knows how to put myself in situations that will only deepen my brokenness.”**  
  
**“You… er…”** she said, apparently struggling with how to respond - most people aren’t sure how to react when I start talking about things like this, so I take a moment to try and think of a way to turn the subject around so we can get back to something worth having conversation over. I offer a better smile and try to gesture the topic away.  
  
**“I like to think that all of it has made me into the kind of person I am today. That whole thing about how every cloud has a silver lining - I just have a lot of clouds, which means I also have a lot of silver. I’ve come to be someone who can go with the flow in a lot of situations, and I have become someone who is honest, tries to be gentlemanly, tries to respect people even if I don’t necessarily like them, and simply tries not to make the same mistakes of the people I grew up around.”** I sighed, no longer feeling the need to seem happier than I really was, since the mood was back in an upward direction. **“That’s why if I can bring happiness to the people who are important to me, than I am happy and satisfied myself.”**  
  
**“I see…”** she said simply, but her expression seemed more complicated than outright understanding. I hadn’t a clue what it was that I was reading from her face.  
  
**“U-um… Momiji?”** I asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable.  
  
**“Huh?”** she said suddenly, her eyes regaining focus and her expression settling into one of inquiry.  
  
**“Er… nothing, really - I didn’t mean to disturb your thoughts, you were just… kinda staring at me in a way that I didn’t quite understand…”** I said, but she seemed to take it it in a different direction than I had meant as her cheeks flushed deeply.  
  
**“Wah!? I-I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking anything odd, I swear..!”**  
  
I blinked. **“Eh?”**  
  
She blinked too. **“E-er… it’s just… you’ve told me more, but I feel like I understand less?”**  
  
**“Oh.”** I said simply. **“Well, it’s probably because it’s something that should be shared after we’ve had more time to get acquainted.”** I carefully navigated over a fallen log and turned to offer a hand, but she had already hopped over it with ease. I just shrugged to myself and continued to keep pace with her. **“Some things are just easier to talk about and understand as friends, you know?”**  
  
She paused in her step and looked at me quizzically before catching up again. **“As friends? In the outside world, is it not considered odd or deviant for a human to be friends with a tengu or other youkai? Do you not understand that the more time you spend fraternizing with people like me, the more you’ll be rejected by your own kind here in Gensokyo?”**  
  
**“Well, it would be quite a novel concept in the outside world, that’s for sure, but I don’t think people would frown upon it unless it starts resulting in dead people. If anything other than outright skepticism, they’d be fascinated and probably shower you with overwhelming attention. Well… at least where I’m from. A few folks might say some offensive things, but in those cases it usually doesn’t matter who or what you are, or what you look like… some people are just nasty to people just for the sake of being nasty.”** I explained to her, then moved on. **“And yes, I’m aware that associating with you will paint me in a bad light in the Human Village. I just don’t care. I like you more. If that makes me odd, or a deviant, but allows me to be on pleasant terms with you, then I’m fine with that.”**  
  
Momiji suddenly stopped walking and turned away from me, burying her face into her palms. I also stopped. It was a few minutes before she said anything.   **“I-I really don’t understand, Kit… You’ve already said that you don’t know what I’m actually like, yet you keep speaking and acting as though you know enough to warrant feeling something special for me. I don’t know what the stories of the outside world say about me, but I feel like I really need to point out that I’m not any different from the other wolf tengu. I’m not someone special, I’ve done no great deeds, I’m not some hero or villain, I’m just a simple patrolwoman who guards the territories of Lord Tenma. I do my job, and only my job - I earn no praise, and I earn no scorn, only my meals and my pride as a tengu.”**  
  
I sighed and lightly poked her shoulder to request that she turn around. She remained turned away from me, but at least pulled her hands away from her face and looked up into the canopies of the trees. I could slightly see the tip of her nose somewhere between her bangs, and that was good enough for me. **“Momiji, I’ll admit that it really has been extremely difficult for me to separate the stories from the reality here, and yeah, I was already attracted to you before we had even met personally, but honestly… this entire time you’ve been interacting with me, ever since I woke up in that clearing a while back... stories aside, you’ve been a very kind and considerate person to me, and have never once made me feel unsafe even though I know that Gensokyo has a lot of dangerous things and people out and about. You even made it clear that you aimed to defend me if you needed to - nobody has ever done that for me before. You’re also a lot prettier and more sociable than the stories let on - I never expected to be able to just interact with you in the way that we have been, I thought that the extent of any possible interaction I might have with you was that I would make a fool of myself in a game of shogi and you’d send me on my way.”**  
  
Her face returned to her palms, but her tail gave her away by swinging from side to side. Since she only offered silence in response, I continued.  
  
**“I’m not anything remarkable, myself. I’m just an ordinary human with next to no future in the outside world, who has come here in a dream almost entirely by chance. Simply meeting you the first time was enough to make me feel fulfilled and at peace. And just to put it out there, I don’t think the stories have embellished much of anything about you - so far, you’re actually living up to the tale.”**  
  
Suddenly she turned around, a splash of brilliant red dashed across her cheeks as she met my eyes with intensity and a gaze that almost seemed like anger. **“So why!? If the stories say I’m an ordinary patrol tengu, what in Lord Tenma’s beard could you possibly think is interesting about me? There are other patrolwomen far prettier than I!”**  
  
**“Maybe in your eyes they’re more beautiful, but for me, that claim goes to you. The way you have treated me is more important, though - if you had treated me poorly, my opinion of you would have quickly soured and I would have been disappointed.”** I suddenly smiled and put my hands on my hips. **“Do I look disappointed to you?”**  
  
She peered at me and seemed to yearn for denial and rebuttal, so I just made a theatrical gesture to comedically frame my expression, and it brought a subtle smile to her face again, softening the rest of her intense expression. **“No, I suppose not… but I still don’t understand.”**  
  
I shrugged. **“I’m not good at explaining. I’m not even sure that I could explain even if I** ** _were_** **skilled at explanations. All I know is that out of everyone I know of in this land of dreams or fantasies or illusions or whatever anyone wishes to call it… you’re the one I like the most. You’re the one I felt like I could get along with the best, even though our interests and lifestyles are different. And here we are, getting along… so why in uh… Lord Tenma’s beard… would I complain about anything from today?”**  
  
She blushed brightly, yet her tail didn’t stop. And then suddenly it did. **“Oh, um… you should probably er…** ** _not_** **use that phrase.”**

 

I used my hand to obscure my mouth.  **“Oops. I guess a human shouldn’t use tengu colloquialisms, huh?”**   
  
**“Color… quail…. What?”** her head tipped to the side at the apparently unfamiliar term.   
  
**“A colloquialism. A word for short phrases or terms that a person or group of people might use in ordinary speech which could seem not so ordinary to another individual or group.”**   
  
**“Oh.Yeah, that sounds about right.”** her head straightened and she smiled.  **“You’re a book-learner, aren’t you? Probably not done a day’s hard work in your life?”**   
  
**“Mm… bit of both, actually. I enjoy research and studying quite a lot, but there have been many points in my life where I have had to do hard work and make hard decisions just to survive. Born into poverty and all that.”** I said with a shrug. She seemed to contemplate this information further, then nodded, seemingly to some silent decision she had made in her mind.   
  
**“Can you cook?”** she asked.   
  
**“I can cook some delicious meals. But I can also set water on fire. And what I make probably doesn’t** **_look_ ** **all that tasty. I’ve never worked with a lot of Japanese ingredients, though I like to think I can make an acceptable stir-fry. I’ve only ever made food for myself though, and what I will eat is significantly different from what someone else might be willing to eat, so… you’d have to get me to cook for you and then judge that for yourself.”**   
  
She pondered this information for a moment, then prepared another question.   
  
**“Can you clean?”**   
  
**“Yes. I like things clean and I like to keep them that way if I can help it.”**   
  
**“Hmm…”** she once again contemplated me as she considered the info. This time she started to walk around me as she asked her next question.  **“Can you work a crop garden?”**   
  
**“I’ve never done so before, but I feel as though I understand enough to at least have a fair chance of decent success if I were to try.”**   
  
She continued to circle around me. I tried to keep my eyes on her as she did so, and then she asked another question.

 

**“Have you done any combat training before?”**   
  
**“No. There’s very little need for the average citizen to be combat-ready in the outside world. Not that it counts for much, but I do spar with my housemates on occasion using practice sabers. If I were to say anything about how I handle a blade, it would be that I seem more prone to--”**   
  
**“Tut tut. That’s not something you should just tell people. Never give away your advantage.”** she stated as she crossed in front of me again, waggling her finger at me.   
  
**“Honestly, I don’t mind telling you - and it becomes stupidly obvious as soon as I pick up a blade anyway, so it doesn’t matter if I tell you now or you find out later.”**   
  
**“Hmm… Well, we can find out later then. I’ll spar with you.”**   
  
**“That’s a little worrisome - more so since I know your typical weapon of choice. I hope we’ll at least be using practice weapons?”**   
  
**“Of course,”** she grinned coyly,  **“I like you just enough now to say I’d rather avoid hurting you…. too much.”**

 

I smiled merrily in return, welcoming her challenge in good fun. **“I appreciate your consideration, Momiji. I’m not fond of pain and would appreciate it if broken bones can be avoided. I would also like for my insides to remain on the inside, so no stabby hook-mabobbers tugging my intestines into the grass, please~”** I said, pantomiming a fatal disembowelment.   
  
She laughed, acknowledging my theatrics.  **“No worries, it’s really just a spar match with practice weapons. I can’t promise that there won’t be pain, though.”**   
  
**“I’m not that worried about it, honest. Training is training, but I like to think of sparring as a means of communication between companions, and it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt, just like any other conversation. A sparring match is best enjoyed when pain can be avoided. Training, however, should be gone into with at least some amount of expectation for pain during or after.”** I said. She looked at me with nothing short of clear agreement and appreciation.   
  
**“I feel the same way. Now I’m** **_really_ ** **looking forward to it, ehe~”** she said, looking quite proud of herself.   
  
**“Me too!”** I chimed, then paused and looked at Momiji.  **“Wait… where will we be sparring?”**   
  
**“My home. You have nowhere else to go and are currently my responsibility, so you’re going to accompany me for as long as you’re here. Do you object?”** she responded, looking at me rather plainly.   
  
**“Nope, not even the slightest objection from me~”** I said, beaming.   
  
**“All things considered, I didn’t think you would.”** she said with a smile. **“After all, it sounds like you want to spend as much time as possible with this ordinary patrolwoman, for some strange reason~”**   
  
**“And that’s because I do, even more so as I come to know you.”** I responded.   
  
She simply sighed and shook her head, her cheeks turning pink again.  **“I almost don’t want to get used to this…”**   
  
**“Oh… uh… should I try to not say things like that…?”**   
  
**“No no, it’s not that!”** she flushed brighter and averted her gaze.  **“I like it. If I get used to it, that means I don’t like it as much, you know?”**   
  
**“Oh, well that’s not quite true. If you get used to it, it doesn’t mean you don’t like it as much, it means you’ve come to accept it better. If I tell you that you’re beautiful, and I do it consistently enough, doesn’t it make sense that you would start to believe it yourself?”**   
  
She turned even brighter and her speech was reduced to a barely audible mumble.  **“Hmm… I guess… though I really can’t see myself just accepting that so easily...”**   
  
**“It’s never something that’s accepted easily in the first place. Just like you have a hard time accepting that I think you’re beautiful, there are a lot of things that I would have a very hard time accepting if you were to say them about me. So it’s not odd or unusual.”** I said. Suddenly she turned to me and grabbed my upper arm with both hands, shaking me back and forth as though she were desperate to rattle some sense into me.   
  
**“Y-you…!”** she ended her unexpected tantrum by pulling her forehead into my shoulder.  **“You are a strange man.”**   
  
**“Yup, and I’m okay with that.”**   
  
**“You’ll have no friends.”**   
  
**“I already know what that’s like, so it’s okay too.”**   
  
**“You might die.”**   
  
**“I already explained that I’m not afraid of dying - just dying in a way that burdens people I care about.”**   
  
**“I might eat you someday.”**   
  
**“I hope you’ll at least grant me the simple wish of enjoying a decent life with you first.”**   
  
Her grip around my arm tightened to the point that it was almost painful. Several moments of silence passed… and then her grip became very gentle.  **“I don’t want to eat you.”**   
  
**“I know already.”**   
  
**“I still don’t understand.”**   
  
**“I’m not sure I do either.”**   
  
**“You’re awfully selfish, you know that?”**   
  
**“I can be sometimes, yes, but could you elaborate on why you feel that way currently, please?”**   
  
She sighed.  **“Maybe I’m being silly and letting myself be swayed by your honeyed words, but… it makes me genuinely upset to think that someone feels the way you do… and you’re just eventually going to pass away a long, long time before I’ll even be old.”**   
  
**“If I understand properly, there’s ways around that.”**   
  
**“The shrine maiden would probably kill you if you tried to discard your humanity.”**   
  
**“I’ve never been a fan of hers anyway, so if I can avoid interacting with her at all, it would be nice. Besides, what I’m thinking of would be something she’d have no control over anyway.”**   
  
She raised her head from my shoulder and looked at me with unchecked curiosity, but didn’t ask - not that she needed to ask.   
  
**“I can just ‘accidentally’ become a magician. I already love studying as it is, and I’m genuinely curious about the way this place works. I don’t know if studying in my current state will accomplish anything since I’m a dreamer, though. If I can find a way to come here properly, I am confident I would have considerable results.”** I said, bringing my hand up to where hers were gripped around my upper arm. She simply looked at my hand as it sat atop her own with an odd expression. Then she inhaled deeply…. and exhaled.   
  
**“Kit.”**   
  
**“Yes?”**   
  
**“This is foolishness.”**   
  
**“Um… beg pardon?”**   
  
**“Just… all of this. Both of us. We’re being foolish.”**   
  
I turned my head to look at her better. She seemed serious.  **“I suppose I understand, but aren’t we just having conversation…?”**   
  
She opened her mouth to respond, then turned pink and closed her mouth again, pressing her forehead to my shoulder once more.  **“I guess I misread the situation, but still…”**   
  
**“Look, truth be told, we’ve only known each other for a few hours. I’m not saying that I’m going to discard my humanity on a whim. All I am saying is that uh… well, if things end up going that way for you and I - which neither of us knows whether it will or won’t - I would be considerably more committed to extending my life to be on par with yours. And if things don’t go that way, well… i’ll either live out the rest of my life as a human, or become a magician anyway as a side effect from my pursuit of knowledge.”** I explained. Her grip on my arm tightened again - not painfully this time, though.   
  
**“If nothing else… I at least want for you to spend more time with me.”** she mumbled into my shoulder.  **“I don’t understand why. I’ve liked it so far, and I just want for it to keep on. I’m not anything special, yet you speak and act as though I’m the greatest thing in your world… and it’s a nice feeling.”**   
  
**“Well, definitely since a few hours ago, and maybe even for some time before then, you** **_have_ ** **been the greatest thing in my world and I feel like you’ll continue to be such, so…”** I said, turning around a bit to put Momiji within reach and putting a gentle hand on her shoulder to assure her. She gave a twitch and looked at me with an expression of surprise, but calmed quickly. The blush covering her face, however, went nowhere.   
  
**“Please don’t do anything rash…”** she said, looking up at me with an expression that was half expectation and half worry.   
  
**“E-eh?? No no, I’m not going to do anything like that so soon!”** I said and took my hand from her shoulder to gesture.  **“M-maybe at a later time… but this is a little early…”**   
  
She reached for my hand as it flapped in the air between us and grasped it firmly between both of her smaller, calloused hands.  **“...This much is okay for now.”**   
  
I smiled, and nodded, but grew curious of the texture on her hands and attempted to inspect. She seemed uncertain, but allowed me to get a closer look at her hands - her palms and fingers bore heavy evidence of her hard work, so I took her hand in both of mine, like she had done for mine a moment ago.  **“The hands of a diligent woman have interesting stories to tell. I’d like to hear them sometime.”** I offered another smile.   
  
**“Kit, if you feed me any more butterflies... I am worried that I might vomit caterpillars for a month straight at some point in the near future.”** she said, pokerfaced.   
  
I could only stare helplessly for a split second before descending into laughter. She followed suit, her pokerface easily shattered. After a few moments of mirth passed, I finally responded.  **“I’m really sorry for being a pest, Momiji. I wish I could explain just how much of an extraordinary circumstance this is for me, you know?”**   
  
**“You’re not being a pest!”** she said and gave my shoulder a light rap.  **“I told you earlier, you have proven that you are a most welcome respite from this tengu’s tired, repetitive patrolling. I am thankful for your company.”**   
  
**“I’ll happily accept that compliment. Speaking of patrolling… is that what we’re doing now? Patrolling this one spot, kind of awkwardly on the edge of deciding whether or not it’s okay to say that we like each other before deciding where to patrol next?”**   
  
**“Ah… um…”** she looked around as another blush settled onto her cheeks and her tail began to sway once more.  **“Well… we** **_should_ ** **actually be walking instead, and if I hope to continue being able to say that I’ve brought no scorn to the tengu, we can’t dawdle.”**   
  
I blinked.  **“Did you just use the word ‘dawdle’?”**   
  
She looked at me quizzically.  **“Yes? It’s a word, you know.”**   
  
**“Oh, I know. It just served as a stern reminder that this place is… kinda stuck in the past compared to the outside world.”**   
  
**“Oh, right. That’s traditionalism for you. Welcome to Gensokyo, the Little Japan away from Japan.”**   
  
**“Hee. Witty wolf tengu. I like that.”**   
  
**“You…!”** She hit me again.  **“Brazen human!”**   
  
**“Sounds about right, to be fair.”** I conceded after rubbing my arm.  **“If this is how you treat me for telling you that I like you, I feel like I’ll lose a limb if I come to the conclusion that I love you.”** I grinned teasingly, but Momiji didn’t quite take it as smoothly as I had anticipated. Rather, her entire face was almost as red as her eyes and she seemed to be debating on running away.  **“Um… Momiji…?”**   
  
**“L-love? H-how are you even considering that as a possibility!?”** her face suddenly disappeared behind her hands, but her tail was going wild.   
  
**“That’s uh… er… a bit of a long story? But for now, let’s just say that I slipped and got a bit ahead of myself, okay…?”** I reached over and gave her shoulder a pat as she nodded, but her face remained behind her hands.  **“H-how about we get back to the patrol…?”** She simply nodded again, so I started walking and she kept pace with me, but slightly behind.   
  
= = = = =   
  
We continued on like this for a few hours, stopping every now and again to rest. After the sun started to descend, Momiji declared that it was time to start making our way back to her home.   
  
**“Fortunately for you, I live a short distance outside of the tengu village.”** she said as we started making our way in the apparent direction of her home.   
  
**“Fortunately for me?”** I queried.   
  
**“Yes, fortunately for you. Let me remind you that I am presently the only tengu who won’t kill or maim you on sight for being on the mountain. Persons precisely like you are the very reason we patrol the mountain in the first place, so for me to bring you home like this is a bit of an unprecedented taboo or sacrilege. Nobody to my knowledge has brought a human before - at least alive or with the intent to keep them alive.”**   
  
**“I’ll do my best so as to not be a burden for the lovely wolf tengu showing me such kindness~!”**   
  
**“Shush, you silly man…”**   
  
**“I have a name, you know.”**   
  
**“You have two names.”**   
  
**“...Touche’.”**   
  
**“That’s not one of them.”**   
  
I simply reached over and patted her head squarely between her ears, just behind her tokin. Her ears stood on end and her tail flopped almost immediately.   
  
**“Ah!?”** She stopped in her tracks and turned to face me with an indignant glare.  **“D-did you really just…?”**   
  
**“Succumb to a curiosity that’s been digging at the back of my mind all day and finally reach over to pat your head? I think so, yes.”** I said, nodding like a simpleton.   
  
She stared at me with a dumbfounded expression, then sighed and shook her head.  **“I can’t even be mad at you. I’m just glad you didn’t do something worse.”**   
  
**“To be honest, I** **_was_ ** **going to ruffle your ears a bit, but at very last split second I decided that because I didn’t know tengu culture I should probably not do that.”**   
  
**“Good choice. Even with how much I like you by this point, I still might have skewered you if you had done that without permission.”**   
  
**“Huh. Duly noted. May I have permission, then?”**   
  
She looked nothing short of shocked.   
  
**“Er… is it really that bad?”**   
  
She regained her composure and straightened her shirt.  **“Uh… well… it’s um… in our culture, that’s not something you just… do.”**   
  
**“Well, since I’m not a tengu, I can’t rightly say that I comprehend.”**   
  
**“How would you feel about someone requesting to fondle** **_your_ ** **ears?”**   
  
**“Hmm… fair point.”**   
  
**“Exactly.”**   
  
**“For what it’s worth, I’d let** **_you_ ** **fondle my ears. Only you though. It’d be really weird for someone else to do it, I guess.”**   
  
**“Wha--? Kit! The idea as a whole is just weird! And I don’t want to fondle human ears!”**   
  
**“But… your ears look tremendously soft…”**   
  
She blinked, unsure how to take this.  **“I’m not going to let you fondle my ears, you… you…”**   
  
**“Eccentric outsider with zero direct exposure to tengu or Gensokyo culture?”**   
  
She stared at me for a very long time. And then sighed.  **“Fine. Just… later. When I’m relaxed and in the privacy of my own home,** **_maybe_ ** **. Once.”** she shook her head, clearly thinking it to be completely ridiculous.  **“This is the only time!”** she held up a finger to emphasize ‘ _ once means once _ ’.   
  
**“Yay~!”** I gave her my best ‘i’m a good boy, i promise’ expression.   
  
**“Don’t do that. You’re already strange enough.”**   
  
**“Welp.”** I just smiled, deciding to quit while I was ahead. Momiji stared at me for a moment longer, then shook her head again and resumed walking. I happily followed along.  **“So with what you were asking me before… did you want for me to cook, clean and just help you out in general?”**

 

Her tail gave a broad flick and she didn’t look at me.  **“Yes.”** she said plainly.   
  
**“Sounds good. I’ll try not to disappoint, but please don’t expect very much.”** I replied.   
  
**“As long as you pull your own weight and keep from getting discovered by anyone troublesome, you’ll be fine. I’ll be having you accompany me on patrols and tending my crop garden in exchange for your room and board.”** she turned to me with a pleasant smile.  **“You only need to worry about keeping me happy and keeping out of sight.”**   
  
**“Well, that sounds like quite a bargain to me. Win-win, even.”** I smiled right back.  **“I don’t like unexpected social encounters and feel more comfortable keeping out of sight and out of mind. Unless you have need or want of me, I will be trying to stay out of your way.”**   
  
**“Good. I’m not the one you have to worry about by this point, though. You’re fine with me - it’s the other tengu you need to avoid.”**   
  
**“I just figure that’s a given - I’m not supposed to be here, after all. Going with you on patrols will make that both easier and harder, though.”**   
  
Momiji slowed down slightly to walk beside me again so we could see each other as we conversed.  **“What do you mean?”**   
  
**“Well, on the plus side, I won’t be anywhere near the village. If we run into other patrols, assuming we’re on or near Lord Tenma’s borders, we can easily say that we’re merely meeting. On the downside, that will only work a few times before your compatriots start to suspect something.”** I explained.   
  
**“That sort of thing is actually somewhat normal. As individuals, we meet people on or near the borders pretty often - usually for trade or political matters - the problem is that when said people are brought into our territory it is almost always to discipline, punish, execute, and often eat them. I only say this because I get the feeling you already know that and have made your decision to accompany me even with having taken that into account.”** she said.   
  
**“That’s correct.”** I held out my closed right hand and extended fingers as I made my next statements.  **“I’m only here as the approximate equivalent of an astral projection, so no matter what happens to me, it isn’t fatal…”** I extended my first finger.  **“I’m not scared of dying, even if I weren’t just a projection…”** I extended my second finger.  **“I trust and believe in you. I am currently not inclined to feel that you would intentionally harm me or put me into harm’s way.”** I extended my third finger.  **“You’re not a liar and you’ve outright said that you don’t want to eat me.”** I extended my fourth finger.  **“I really like you a lot and intend to do anything within my power to remain in your good graces.”** I extended my thumb, then gestured my open hand in her direction.  **“I know a fair estimation of what I’m getting myself into, and feel that the time spent with you, however short or long it may be, will be worth the potential risks.”**   
  
She suddenly huffed and looked at me, intentionally trying to look bothered. She brought up her arm and stared at my hand for a split moment, puffed her cheek as she thought about it for a second, then slapped my palm hard enough to sting… but didn’t let go, keeping my hand in hers as she pushed my hand down to a resting position. She looked in the opposite direction and mumbled.  **“You’re going to turn me into a selfish woman if you keep talking me up like this.”**   
  
**“Are you saying you want to keep me~?”** I half-teased, gently swinging my arm, keeping her hand in mine. Her head swivelled to stare at me sternly and she gave me an indignant look that said she clearly meant to retort with pointed and possibly painful words, but as she looked at me with mouth agape and ready to speak, her expression softened and her mouth closed. After a moment, her brow creased and she appeared to be trying to read my expression. I offered her a smile to show that I was happy with the notion.  **“I wouldn’t mind, truth be told. If it would make you happy, it would make me happy. Well… unless what would make you happy turns out to be bad for my mental or physical well-being.”** I said. Her mouth opened again.   
  
**“I... “** she started, then contemplated me for a few moments more.  **“...I think I will wait before I answer that.”** She seemed worried about how I would respond, but frankly, that answer made me feel more comfortable than the alternatives. My happiness apparently showed, as she donned a confused expression, which ushered in me a need to explain myself.   
  
**“I think that was the best possible answer you could have given, Momiji.”** I nodded in pleased acknowledgement.  **“I would have understood if you had said no - you’ve only just met me today, I’m a human, i’m not even actually here, et cetera. There are a very wide variety of good reasons to have told me no. If you have told me yes, I would have been very happy - ecstatic even - but I would rather avoid rushing things with you… rushing leads to mistakes, and making mistakes so early in getting to know each other would not bode well for establishing a foundation on which to build a stable friendship… or relationship, for that matter. Telling me yes would have been a jump at the short-term happiness, and while happy and fun… would have made for a sandy foundation, and a friendship - or relationship - that would have eventually crumbled...”** I held her hand a little more warmly.  **“Telling me you wanted to wait to decide on your answer likely means that you value the notion of a stable foundation for your friendships - you want to wait and make sure that I am someone who is valuable to your needs and wants in life, and meets your requirements - and as of yet, you are undecided on whether or not I meet these requirements. You haven’t seen my actions, you have only heard my words, basically. Am I terribly far off here?”**   
  
She gave me an unusual expression that may have meant she was impressed, but also could have been perturbed by my presumptuousness.  **“A-actually, that...sounds… pretty close.”** her gaze dropped to where our hands were. **“Part of it, though, is that… well, with the way you speak and behave, particularly toward non-humans… I feel like you would be aggressively shunned from the village if I were to send you back there - like, even though you’re a human, the village isn’t your place. Normally I wouldn’t care what happens to some wayward outsider or lost villager, and I’d even get rid of them myself if the situation presented itself that way, because for the most part they tend to seem like bumbling fools more often than not. I really didn’t understand it at first, but after having spent most of the day conversing with you, I think it’s more that you don’t really… present yourself as a human? At least, the humans we’re used to, like villagers and outsiders.”** Her eyes looked up at me, then she seemed to relax and start paying attention to where we were going.  **“Like you mentioned to Shameimaru-san earlier, you seem like… you’re supposed to be something else. Or maybe you already are something else and only know to think of yourself as human. I don’t know, I’m just a patrolwoman, not a scholar or a sage. My role doesn’t require me to know philosophy and whatnot.”**   
  
**“Heh. I already ran into that problem the last time I was here. The village is already wary of me because I spent my first visit making a new scythe for Onozuka-san.”** I said offhandedly. Momiji suddenly stopped in her tracks and turned to face me directly, her expression one of pure disbelief.   
  
**“You!? There’s no way… was that really you??”** she exclaimed loudly. I was more than a little surprised by her volume and reaction.   
  
**“Uh… er… h-have I done something wrong…? It’s just that it really seemed like she needed a new one and I didn’t think it was that big of a deal… It just seemed like the nice thing to do.”** I said, worried that I’ve now offended Momiji. She blinked and swung my hand from side to side a bit.   
  
**“No no, you’re fine, it’s just… I didn’t think that you were the mystery smith. Uh… in fact, it presents a bit of an interesting opportunity and may be very important to…”** she suddenly blushed and stopped mid-sentence.   
  
**“Eh?”**   
  
**“Er… well, it’s just important. And also means that it’s a good thing I didn’t send you to the Human Village. Don’t tell anyone else what you’ve told me today!”** She obfuscated what she was initially saying, and her expression melted into one of excitement and her tail rose high to flap through the air behind her like a pennant.   
  
**“Huh? I’m okay with that, but… why?”**   
  
She grinned.  **“I might know you’re a human…. but nobody else does. And maybe you already know this, but considering the nature of your visits…”**   
  
It wasn’t quite registering, what it was that she was attempting to say. She jerked my hand a bit.   
  
**“Kit, come on. I haven’t known you for very long and even I already know you understand what this means.”** she said, and started to gesture with her free hand as she continued and spelled it out for me anyway.  **“You appeared from nowhere, had no connections, did not behave like a human, acted solely to the benefit of a god, and vanished. Then you appeared again, expressed foreknowledge of Gensokyo, acted in the interest of non-humans once more, and vanished in an extraordinary way that was not simply so explainable as to claim you had merely died. And now here you are again, clearly not dead. Even the resident god of death thinks and claims that you’re a clandestine god of the forge!”**   
  
It hit me like a brick in a purse.  **“Ah! Wait wait, I’m not a god though! … I don’t think?”**   
  
**“That’s not the point!** **_I_ ** **know that - but** **_nobody else_ ** **does!”** she said, grinning from ear to ear.   
  
I pondered this new direction. Honestly, I could neither confirm nor deny it. Everything I knew of myself was as a human, but I’d read and observed enough tales to realize that there were ways to explain that away. I looked at Momiji’s strangely excited and proud expression - she looked like she had just solved the world’s biggest mystery. But what she was suggesting was something considerably more than what I was vying for. I would need more time to think about it, so I told her as much. **“I don’t intend to tell anyone anyway, but I feel like this is something I should put a bit more thought into. Like I said, I might not feel like a human, and I might not want to be a human, but that doesn’t mean I wish to discard my humanity on a whim, you know? Well… if I even have a choice anymore. If I understand Gensokyo’s power of belief correctly, I may have accidentally already become this supposed ‘Clandestine God of the Forge’ that Onuzuka-san is claiming me to be.”** I sighed and held her hand a little more solidly.  **“But considering that you didn’t immediately surmise me to fit the bill for whatever she’s claiming, I may still have some time to come to my own decision on it.”**   
  
Momiji nodded vigorously.  **“Right now, you’re just a rumor with very little specifics. However…”** her rosy cheeks brightened, but she was filled with vim and seemed unable to slow down.  **“If you want to take up the job, I’ll support you!”** Her enthusiasm was infectious and I felt myself turn red, but I couldn’t help but smile.   
  
**“That is definitely a most enticing offer and will likely be what sways my decision, but I’d still like to think about it, okay?”** I said. She nodded more.   
  
**“Another thing though - if you become a god, you’ll be permitted on the mountain and won’t have to skulk around!”** she pointed out, clearly unaware of the underlying implications in her posit.   
  
**“So what you’re saying is that... if I become a god, I won’t have to be your secret human roommate because I can simply live with you and nobody would complain?”** I teased. The fact that Momiji turned stiff as a board and an alarming shade of red told me that she now realized what else she had said. The first thing to regain movement was her tail, raised high behind her and tipping side to side like a metronome. Then her ears twitched and she started to loosen up. Her mind, however, was in deadlock. I decided to help.  **“If it’s you who would support me, however…”** I started, purposely ending my statement in a very leading way. She took the bait and was drawn out of her deadlock.   
  
**“A-am I not enough?? Don’t be greedy!”** she exclaimed somewhat angrily as her senses returned.   
  
**“No no, that’s not it at all.”** I gave her a gentle smile.  **“If you’re the one to support me and I choose to become a deity for Gensokyo, I may find myself in a situation where I’ll have to convince Lord Tenma to lend me one of his beloved wolf tengu~”** I suggested coyly. She blinked, probably not expecting it to be the opposite of what she thought it was.   
  
**“Huh?”** she said, less from confusion, and more as a prompt for more details.   
  
**“Well aren’t deities a delicacy for youkai?”**   
  
**“Some believe so, yes.”**   
  
**“And as you know, I have no combat training, right?”**   
  
**“So you’ve implied, yes…”**   
  
**“Well, I happen to know of a certain lovely patrolwoman that I would trust with my life, and I think she’d make for a fine companion and guard.”** I said and reached for her other hand, holding both of her small, calloused hands in my own.  **“She has treated me very well, and I would do the same for her. She’s very valuable to me, and I dare say that I would go to great lengths in Lord Tenma’s favour if it meant she would be permitted to accompany me. Her name is Inubashiri Momiji - she has sparkling ruby eyes that take in the world near and far with curiosity and intensity, she wears her soft alabaster hair in a wonderful and relaxed manner, and her lovely face bears a precious nose that peeks from between her bangs when she peers skyward. Her ears are calm and proud, the sound her tail makes when it brushes against her skirt makes me feel at ease, and she’s just the right height for my hand to affectionately rub the top of her head on occasion. She has a heart of gold, and her mind is sharp like her blade - a perfect companion for a god of the forge, don’t you think?”** I smiled and raised both of her hands between the two of us… but it seems that I broke her. She was flushed brightly and had started to sweat, but she was otherwise nonresponsive. I blinked, and leaned in a bit.  **“H-hello?”** Her eyes suddenly flicked over my shoulder and regained focus, but the colour practically drained from her face.   
  
**“A...ah…”** she started.   
  
**“Uh… sorry… I guess that was a little much at once…”** I said and started to look at the ground between us. She freed one of her hands to catch my chin before I looked down and shook her head, then pointed over my shoulder just as someone spoke from behind me.   
  
**“Oh no no, you said quite plenty and may need to say quite a bit more,** **_Mr. Forge-kami_ ** **.”** said a familiar voice. I turned around to face what was probably the person in the forefront of Momiji’s mind when she mentioned avoiding ‘ _ anyone troublesome _ ’. Nevertheless, I gave a polite bow to the coal-haired crow.   
  
**“Shameimaru-san.”** I said, greeting her by name.   
  
**“Yes, that’s me. Pleased that you remember me - but there’s something a bit more pressing at hand,** **_Mr. Forge-kami_ ** **.”** she said, oddly emphasizing the name she was using to address me, and not returning the bow. Momiji put her hand on my shoulder for a moment and she seemed to use it as a handhold to pull herself back to her senses just as much to aid her step forward to stand beside me.   
  
**“Yes?”** I inquired of Aya.   
  
**“You are currently trespassing deep into tengu territory and should by all means be executed.”** she said with an expression of deathly seriousness. Her gaze then turned to Momiji.  **“However, it not only seems that you are being escorted by one of our own…”** her gaze returned to me.  **“...but that there is much, much more to you than I initially judged.”**   
  
**“That certainly may be the case, Shameimaru-san.”** I responded plainly, neither confirming or denying any allegations outright, painting them only as a possibility. Aya clicked her tongue derisively at this, and the hint of a scowl broke through her expression. She reached to her hip and procured a notebook and a pen.   
  
**“What I run is a business, Mr. Forge-kami. It is not usually my job to try and enforce our local laws - my job is to gather and report the news.”** she gestured with her eyes at Momiji.  **“Considering that you are currently accompanied by someone who** **_does_ ** **have the job of enforcing our local laws… I will assume that there is a very good reason for this - most likely to do with that notion of you being a god. In offering you the benefit of the doubt, I will turn a blind eye to what I am witnessing here if you will make good on what you said earlier about an interview and agree upon a scheduled date and time, right here and now.”**   
  
**“Sure thing, ma’am. As a heads-up, however, I’m afraid I can’t make solid promises. My presence in Gensokyo is very unpredictable, it would seem, so I’ll certainly schedule an interview with you and make my best efforts to attend, but if I disappear from Gensokyo, please understand that it is something currently beyond my control. I may reappear at some further unpredictable time in the future, so I hope it’s okay to make it a tentative arrangement with this in mind.”** I already felt like I was on Aya’s bad side - all three encounters with her have been unpleasant so far. Being honest with her shouldn’t hurt anything, but I did make sure to select my words carefully so that I was still not confirming or denying anything about myself. I knew well enough that information was not something to just give to this woman unchecked. Aya considered me at length. Momiji shifted very uneasily beside me.   
  
**“Hm. If it can’t be helped, it can’t be helped.”** she said, but didn’t show that she was planning to go anywhere just yet. She looked me over with judgemental eyes, then looked at Momiji with eyes like swords. The wolf looked like a deer caught in the headlights and instinctively clutched my hand tightly as she braced herself for whatever Aya was going to say.  **“Momiji, I won’t pretend to know what you’re up to with aiming to make this man an arahitogami, but what I do know is that he is no god, and unless he somehow does obtain divinity, I will refuse to acknowledge him as anything more than what he is - a human. I’m not stupid, and I’m not delusional in that fashion.”** She returned her gaze to me.  **“I** **_also_ ** **know full well that she’s obviously taking you to her home and intends to allow you to live with her. I want to trust Momiji’s judgement here, but it’s** **_you_ ** **I don’t trust. Promise me an interview, and I’ll say nothing to the others - but don’t think for even a moment that I’ll just idly go about my business and not keep my eye on you to make sure you behave yourself.”** she said, crossing her arms under her chest. She didn’t look enthused or entertained, but I offered a smile anyway.   
  
**“As long as you don’t mind the possibility of the interview being delayed by my unexpected absence, I am still not opposed to an interview and never have been from the onset. By this point, however, even if I do end up disappearing before I can give you a proper interview, Momiji has been a lovely conversation partner and has learned enough about me to perhaps offer a bit of information in my stead. I have already trusted her with my life once, and she has kept me safe for all of today, so I am quite confident that I can trust her judgement in my absence.”** I said. Aya’s brows raised quite high and her mouth opened to say something, but Momiji stepped forward slightly and interjected first.   
  
**“I have already claimed responsibility for him while he is visiting Gensokyo, so for all intents and purposes, he is in my charge. You may essentially consider him a prisoner - willing, but captive nonetheless. I have no intent to let him out of my sight, and will be conducting interrogations of my own, mostly in the form of conversation, so it is as he claims. If he is unable to attend the interview he has assured you, I will provide some information in Kit’s stead.”** she said firmly to Aya’s face. Aya looked between the two of us a few times, then she grinned as she spoke.   
  
**“So you two are on first-name basis now, huh?”** she made a show of sniffing and wiping a fake tear from her eye.  **“My little Momiji is growing up so fast~”**   
  
This made Momiji mad.  **“I’m not ‘your little’ anything! He has earned my friendship and the right to use my first name - a right I don’t remember giving to you!”** she shouted, her hand going for the hilt of her blade. I carefully took a  _ very _ short step back - I knew enough to not put very much distance at all between me and Momiji because my current position made me the bigger target, but I still needed to give Momiji a bit of space to draw and swing if she needed or wanted to. Aya just laughed loudly, noticing both of our movements.   
  
**“This really is quite something!”** she chortled.  **“It’s not even been a single day and you lovebirds already behave like a unit!”** Momiji’s sword flashed from the scabbard and raised toward Aya.   
  
**“We’re not like that.”** Momiji said, though she was unable to obscure her hesitation or uncertainty.   
  
**“Yet~”** Aya fired back. Momiji’s foot stepped forward, readying for a strike.  **“But that’s enough teasing from me, I suppose.”** she looked to me, over Momiji’s shoulder.  **“Kit, was it?”**   
  
**“He has not given you permission to use his first name either, Shameimaru-san.”** Momiji said, her words practically laden with fire as her sword lowered slightly and she slid her footing back slowly until she was beside me again.   
  
**“Yeah yeah, I don’t care about those formalities. Wasn’t talking to you anyway.”** Aya waved her off - this time she managed to make  _ me _ angry, but I contained myself.  **“Kit, I’ll come to find you tomorrow morning, bright and early. If you’re still here, be prepared for questioning. Just in case, how about you abstain from making like the birds and the bees long enough have a loooong heart-to-heart with your Juliet-alike so that she’ll have enough info to make it worth my silence?** ” she said, not even bothering to mince words. I felt myself blush at what she was implying, and apparently Momiji did as well, because Aya’s gaze darted between our faces and she dropped a mocking comment.  **“Aww, you two are just precious. Seriously though. Make time for the chitchat before you two disrobe. Don’t make me feel like I need to stay the night just to ensure I get what I’m after.”** I felt the need to say something before she continued to get the wrong idea.   
  
**“That’s fine by me, but I feel like I need to reinforce what Momiji said… we’re really not like that.”** I told her.   
  
**“Once again, you’re not like that...** **_yet_ ** **.”** Aya said, this time with a smirk.  **“Maybe you two don’t see or understand at the moment, but I’ve been around quite a considerable bit longer than either of you, and I know what I’m looking at.”** Her wings unfolded behind her and once again she backstepped a few times before taking to the air. As she started to gain momentum, she called over her shoulder. **“Oh, and Momiji dearest~? If you’re making me a great-great-great-great-great auntie, please give me little ones to be proud of~! I wouldn’t mind half-deity half-tengu kiddos~!”** Both Momiji and I stepped forward to yell after the departing crow.   
  
**“We’re not like that!”** we both yelled in unison.   
  
**“And I’m not related to you!”** Momiji added. Aya was already out of sight over the trees somewhere, but she still called a short reply.   
  
**“You don’t know that~!”** the crow retorted. Momiji made a few frustrated hops forward, then stamped her foot once, her stilted sandal making a loud noise against the earth as she threw her head back.   
  
**“Ugh! That old hag makes me so mad!”** she said loudly to the sky, then shouted just for the sake of itself.  **“AAARGH!”**   
  
**“I can see why. When she waved you off after you objected to her using first names, it made** **_me_ ** **angry… and you don’t know this just yet, but it takes a lot to even make me merely upset or bothered.”** I said, then sighed deeply and walked over to her side. She still had her blade drawn, so I reached over and lightly used a finger to poke the back of her hand holding the sword.  **“You probably don’t need this out now that she’s left.”** She raised her hand a bit and looked at the blade, then sighed and put it away.   
  
**“I’m not going to apologize for her reprehensible behaviour, but I will at least apologize for the fact that you’re having to put up with it. You seem to have far more patience with people like her than I can claim to have.”** she said, then turned to look straight at me. I raised my hands toward her, palms-up, and offered a smile.   
  
**“Well, with that encounter behind us, shall we resume our trek to your home?”** I queried. She raised a brow, but it soon lowered and was replaced with a smile as she raised only one of her hands and placed it gently into my palm, pressing it down to a relaxed position at our sides. I lowered my remaining hand and we began to walk once more.   
  
**“I had hoped to avoid exactly that, you know.”**   
  
**“I already figured. She was the one I was also hoping to avoid - actually, there are quite a few people here in Gensokyo that I would prefer to avoid if I can help it.”** I said. She looked at me as we walked.   
  
**“Was I one of those people?”**   
  
**“Absolutely not. I told you before - out of everyone here that I know about, you’re the one I wanted to meet the most.”** I said. She turned pink, but was much less phased than before.   
  
**“How many people do you know about, then?”** she asked.   
  
**“Let’s see… As many as a possible one-hundred and sixty-six residents I know by appearance alone. One-hundred and thirty-three of them by name, general appearance, and basic information. I don’t know just how true that information is, though.”**   
  
**“One hundred-- how on earth do you know so many with having only been here three times!?”** she paused in her step due to her surprise, but resumed walking before our hands could separate.   
  
**“Hmm… that’s difficult to answer in an understandable way.”** I said, and used my spare hand to rub my chin as I considered the question and how I would answer. I had been honest and straightforward with her so far, and didn’t intend to obscure any information, but it would be difficult to explain things that are beyond the scope of Gensokyo itself. Not only that, but I couldn’t help feeling awkward in knowing that the way I would answer would feel strange when included in the record I would be writing of this visit at a later time.  **“Let’s see… There is a collection of semi-obscure music, books, and games in the outside world which features Gensokyo and the myriad residents here as characters. They are regarded as works of fiction, and despite being here in front of you now, the fact remains that at some point, I will wake up and my time here will** **_effectively_ ** **be no more than a dream. Knowing this, I can’t bring myself to call the collection anything other than fiction without seeming like a crazy person.”** I looked at her and shrugged.  **“I am not going to claim to know anything about what is or is not real at this point - personally, I don’t really care, least of all with how damaged my perception of ‘reality’ has become as of late. I have decided to operate under the pretense that all things are in some strange, twisted, quantum juxtaposition of both real and not real, regardless of whether I am dreaming or not. The most I will be able to do with my experiences here, well… when I wake up, I will spend the time to write a detailed record of what I can remember of my time here, just like I did for my last two visits.”** I finished my unintentionally long-winded reply to her inquiry, inhaled deeply, then exhaled a long sigh. Everything I had just told her would likely seem like word salad, and I expected her to just handwave most of it as non-explanation. My inability to concisely explain anything clearly was surfacing, and I mentally chided myself.   
  
**“So… a collection of music, books, and games? And I take it that you are a fan of them?”** she said. Like I expected, it appeared that everything else I had said was discarded.   
  
**“Yes, and yes.”**   
  
**“Do you think it would be unusual to say that your fascination with this collection has contributed to the fact that you dream of this place?”**   
  
**“Not at all. Rather, I would normally have claimed that it would be impossible to dream of this place without some amount of foreknowledge. Recently, though, I have begun to question the legitimacy of that notion.”**

 

**“Is it because of your interest in this collection that you feel your perception of reality has frayed?”** she asked, holding my hand a little tighter as if to affirm her presence as a certainty.

 

**“Ooh, that’s also a tough question. Uh…. yes and no.”** I responded, and paused as I contemplated how to explain. She just looked over at me expectantly.  **“No, because even before I knew of the collection I had a lot of trouble with family, friends, and dreams eroding away at my sense of reality. My family has a tendency of giving me conflicting information, and now I don’t know what is or is not real in regards to my own past.”** I raised my hand to gesture a separation in my reply, then continued.  **“Yes, however, because of something about the way the collection was presented… it was a bit like unraveling a mystery, for me. I’d find one clue or snippet of information, and it would lead me to another, and then another. I have enjoyed years of piecing together, hypothesizing, and researching Gensokyo’s lore. But some of the information I came across connected in ways that occasionally made things seem like there was some small possibility that things might be more true than what was being let on. Under the guise of maintaining some semblance of sanity, however, I’ve made it a point to hold a skeptical position about it.”** I gestured with my free hand.  **“I have no proof or evidence, only concepts and ideas of what** **_might_ ** **be, so I am stuck in a position where I cannot confirm anything, yet also cannot deny anything.”**

 

**“Is that part of why you operate as though everything is somehow both real and not real?”** she asked. Her question caught me off guard, though, because it meant that she actually  _ had _ received what I had said instead of discarding what she didn’t understand. She had listened - and then asked questions in a way that would bring her to understand what she may not have understood the first time. It made me appreciate her more, and caused me to smile.   
  
**“Yes, exactly.”** I said, giving her arm a merry swing.

 

**“On that note though - you’ve mentioned several times now that this is your third visit or dream of Gensokyo. You said you wrote about the last two, so could you tell me about them?”**   
  
**“Sure, though not in as much detail, I’m afraid. The reason I write them is because my memory is not that great.”**   
  
**“That’s fine, just a summary would suffice, really.”** she smiled.   
  
**“Hmm… well, the first time I dreamed of Gensokyo was quite a long time ago - actually, before that… how much time has passed since Aya killed me that day?”**   
  
Momiji blinked, not expecting the derailment.  **“Uh… about six months, I’d guess?”**   
  
**“Huh. Interesting. Well, in that case, it’s been almost exactly a year since my first dream, and six months have passed between each of the three dreams so far. I don’t yet know whether there is a pattern here, but I guess I’ll find out eventually.”** I thought aloud. Momiji continued to absorb what I was saying with abundant curiosity, but she also interjected something of her own.   
  
**“Well, we’re almost to my home, so we’ll soon be able to relax while we converse.”** This time she was the one to give my arm a swing, then suddenly looked at me as something dawned on her.  **“Uh… actually… I live alone and almost never have visitors, so my home is…”**   
  
**“A little unkempt?”**   
  
**“A lot, more like. I am usually rather tired by the end of my patrols, and tend to not have the energy to do much by the time I get back, so…”**   
  
**“Nah, it’s fine. I understand, actually. I can help you clean if you like, but I can’t say I’m bothered by mess. I like to clean and keep things clean - but mostly because that’s what I do when I feel bored or frustrated or am struggling with cluttered thoughts.”** I said.   
  
**“Heh, I can kinda relate to that, but honestly I would like to clean a bit so that my home is presentable enough to make me feel good about having a friend stay.”** she said. I grinned suddenly.

 

**“That’s the second time you’ve called me friend.”** I gave her hand a light squeeze.   
  
**“Are you going to count every time I say it?”** she asked teasingly.   
  
**“What if I do?”**   
  
**“You’ll get tired of it eventually,** **_friend_ ** **~”**

 

**“Probably, but I still can’t help feeling happy about it for now, you know.”** I said with a bit of a laugh. Her cheeks turned pink for a couple moments, then suddenly splashed a much brighter colour.   
  
**“If you get all sentimental and saccharine over something like that, I worry what you’ll do if I start to think more of you, silly man.”**   
  
I saw an opportunity to fire back, and she practically set herself up for it, but it didn’t stop my cheeks from feeling like fire just by thinking about it.  **“It sounds like you already are thinking more of me, silly lady~”**   
  
**“H-hey! That’s…”** she turned a bright red and averted her gaze.  **“That was a cheap shot, Kit.”** She was trying hard to keep a smile from her lips.   
  
**“Maybe so, but it looks true to me.”** I gave her arm a broad swing as a distraction.  **“If it helps… the feeling is mutual.”**   
  
**“Kit, that makes it worse! Well… better… but worse!”**   
  
**“Because we’re not supposed to prove what Shameimaru-san was implying?”**   
  
**“Exactly! Wait, no…”** Momiji said loudly, then immediately realized that this was not a good thing to say. It caused me to laugh.   
  
**“Momiji, it’s fine. I completely agree, you know! She was being a royal pain in the ass and we should at least try to prove her wrong somehow.”** I brought our hands up to emphasize a pursuit for solidarity in defiance.  **“Maybe she’s not wrong about there being uh… something between us… but surely we can at least refute her implications of what we’ll be doing later.”**   
  
**“Y-yeah, I think we could manage that much. She’s being more than a little presumptuous anyway.”** Momiji said, blushing profusely.  **“I am not in any way ready for anything like… uh… that.”**

 

**“Believe me, I know. I’m not either.”** it made me even more self conscious to realize that  _ we _ approached the subject this time… of our own accord. Worse still is that I knew full well despite my desire to hold off on the intimacies with her for the sake of a more stable long-term… if she advanced on me, I would not hesitate to accept her. To begrudgingly borrow Aya’s earlier phrase… Momiji is more and more the apple of my eye.  **“I’d like to get to know you before we consider things like that.”** I said, then paused.  **“... well, I guess it’s a little late for considering, but let’s refrain from acting on it.”**   
  
**“Kit!”** she exclaimed and roughly shook my arm.  **“Stop thinking about that old hag’s projection on us!”**   
  
**“You too!”** I said, and she blushed.   
  
**“I’m not!”**   
  
**“Yes you are, it’s written all over your face!”** I said, and she promptly directed her face away from me.   
  
**“If I am, it’s only because you keep mentioning it!”**   
  
**“I’ll take that blame, I suppose.”** I tugged on her arm lightly and playfully, unbalancing her as we walked.   
  
**“Hey! None of that!”** she exclaimed, and used her free hand to hit my shoulder.   
  
**“You sure like to hit me, you know!”** I said, and theatrically furrowed my brows at her. She stuck her tongue out at me like a child, and even though she meant it as a half-serious retort, it had a completely different sort of impact, inexplicably causing me to fall for the wolf tengu even further.  **“Hmm…”**   
  
**“What?”** she asked, giving a concerned look, probably worried that she had offended me.   
  
**“Uh… nothing bad, but I seem to have found myself in a… er… predicament, I suppose.”** I said, smiling to her.   
  
**“Predicament?”**   
  
**“Believe me, I want to tell you, but it’s best if I wait until later.”** I said with a smile.

 

**“Eh? If you say it quietly, I’ll be the only one to hear, you know.”**   
  
**“Oh, it’s not a privacy concern, more like… a timing concern. I still have things that I should learn about you, first.”** I replied. This time, it was her that smiled, but a thick blush cropped across her face. She brought herself a pace closer to me as we walked and leaned close so she could speak quietly.   
  
**“Don’t tell me that you have decided you’ve fallen for this regular patrolwoman… is that what it is~?”** she hypothesized, turning redder as she spoke.   
  
**“Okay, I won’t tell you that me having fallen for you may be precisely the predicament.”** I said, surely blushing just as strongly as her. Oddly, despite having practically guessed it herself, she still seemed very surprised.   
  
**“Ah...Kit, you know that’s…”**   
  
**“A predicament, like I said.”** I sighed a bit. Momiji went silent and contemplated something, glancing at me on occasion as we walked. Suddenly, she brought herself closer, but extricated her hand from mine. Just as I felt my heart begin to sink and anxiety start to set in, her arm tucked under mine and her hand slipped back into place, this time she worked her fingers between mine. She looked closely at my face for a moment as I peered at her in confusion, then she turned her face and pointed her nose away from me, presumably so that she could better speak her mind.   
  
**“It hasn’t even been a day, and I don’t understand either, okay?”** she said. Then she tensed, and visibly forced herself to face me directly, though her face quickly grew redder by the second as she spoke.  **“You’re unique, like a treasure I wouldn’t know how to describe, and… and Shameimaru-san be damned… I find that I am wishing to keep you for myself - even to the point that thinking of you going to someone else makes me feel… unpleasant. To put it simply, this is perhaps the best patrol I have ever had, and you’re the reason for it. I’ve already found myself thinking a few times about rather desperate things I might do if it meant I could keep you with me, and I want to be worried or guilty for feeling so selfish or greedy, but…”** she practically spilled, stumbling over her own words and finally having to simply stop. I couldn’t help but to smile and give her hand a reassuring squeeze. She squeezed back.

 

**“Don’t worry, your message has come through, Momiji.”** I told her, and stopped walking, holding her hand steadfast to indicate that I wished for her to stop too. She stopped, and I stood in front of her, keeping my fingers laced with hers. I decided to be a lot more bold than usual, and I leaned toward her, directing my forehead in a motion that showed I aimed to lightly contact hers, but giving her the room to refuse if she wished.  **“You don’t have to do anything desperate, you know. After all, I’m a captive to the tengu patrolwoman, Inubashiri Momiji, just differently from what you implied earlier~”** I paused briefly, then clarified. **“In other words.. I’m er… already yours… you know?”** I said. She broke into a smile backed by an interesting mix of emotion, and leaned forward, closing her eyes and offering her forehead, apparently understanding my body language. I smiled and closed my eyes, bringing my head to meet hers. She pulled away for a split second on contact, but promptly pushed her forehead back against mine. Unexpectedly, I felt her ears against the top of my head, and she applied a little more pressure. I could hear the sound of her tail pleasantly brushing from side to side against her skirt, and it helped me to regain my sense of calm. We stayed like this in silence for quite a while, and then I spoke… mostly to reassure myself that she was still there, and still real enough to be interacted with.  **“Momiji?”**   
  
**“Hmm?”** she replied in a relaxed tone I hadn’t yet heard from her. It was my turn to deal with butterflies, but I took a second to calm them before I responded.   
  
**“Thank you.”** I told her. I felt her ears swish in confusion atop my head, and I opened my eyes to find that hers were already open, so I was greeted by a pair of inquisitive rubies, silently asking me why I was thanking her.  **“For a lot of things. For being the one I met when I woke up earlier. For not killing me right away - or any time after. For not letting Shameimaru-san kill me again… and then again later. You’ve given me just as much of a wonderful time as you say I’ve given you, and I’m very grateful you’ve brought me with you on your patrol today. This has come at a time when I probably needed it most, so truly… thank you.”**   
  
I felt the heat rush to her face though her forehead even before I saw her cheeks turn red, and she rocked her head from side to side against my forehead.  **“You….!”** she loudly started to complain, then she stopped rolling her head against mine and stopped to ever so slightly brush her nose twice against mine, while her voice dropped to barely audible levels.  **“...you’re welcome…”**

 

**“Hee…”** she made me feel shy, and it was nice for some reason.  **“I didn’t mean to stop us for this long, but now I kinda don’t want to go anywhere.”**   
  
**“I don’t either…”** she said bashfully.  **“We should get home, though. We can relax without worry or interruption there.”** she smiled at me, and it summoned a return smile from me.   
  
**“Sounds good to me. Even more so in knowing that once we’re relaxed I’ll get to stroke your ears~”** I said casually. She suddenly pouted.   
  
**“I was kinda hoping you would forget that nonsense, you know!”**   
  
**“I do know - and that’s why I reminded you~”** I said merrily, and brushed my nose to hers once before slowly pulling away. She leaned forward as if to keep me from breaking contact, but we weren’t going to go anywhere if we stayed that way, so I begrudgingly separated from her. Even her eyes chased after me in their own way, but she sighed slowly and straightened. We began walking again, hand-in-hand as we had been.

 

**“Hey Kit…?”**   
  
**“Yes, Momiji?”**   
  
**“Please don’t do anything untoward in my home. It’s a mess, but it’s still my private dwelling and you are my guest.”** she said, laying down a rule.   
  
**“Of course. I can mind my manners well enough. Does this mean you don’t want me to aid you in cleaning?”**   
  
**“You can help me clean, sure, but… only if I’m already cleaning, and only in the room I’m cleaning.”**   
  
**“Fair enough - that way I’m not throwing anything away that I shouldn’t be, and putting things in the wrong place. Once the house is clean and I know what’s supposed to go where, do you object to me keeping it clean for you?”** I asked.   
  
**“No, of course not. That would help me out a lot, actually.”** she said, and smiled.  **“Coming home to a clean house would be refreshing, so please do, if you would be so kind.”**

 

**“Yes ma’am~!”** I said, and gave a lighthearted salute with my free hand. She smiled broadly and swung our hands back and forth.   
  
**“If you prove yourself, I don’t mind if you want to think of it as your home too.”** she said.   
  
**“Too late~”** I chirped.   
  
**“Wha? But you haven’t even been there yet!”**   
  
**“Doesn’t matter. You live there, and that’s enough for me. There’s a saying in the outside world - ‘home is where the heart is’ - and it basically means that your home is where you feel at ease with your company, wherever that may be, from a grand mansion on the shores of your favourite beach, to the mud and grime of a rainy forest.”** I told her. Even as I spoke she started to push and pull my arm harder and harder.   
  
**“Why do you insist on saying all of these things that make me… aaaaah!”** she objected, shaking me until I had to stop making forward progress just to keep my balance.   
  
**“M-Momiji, please..!”** I said from amidst her shaking. She suddenly stopped and made sure I retained my balance.   
  
**“Sorry… I just…”** she started.   
  
**“It’s fine, I kinda brought that upon myself, you know.”** I said with a smile as I adjusted the hem of my shirt with my free hand.   
  
**“Still…”** she looked down.  **“I don’t mean to behave like an imbecile, honest…”**   
  
I smiled and raised a finger, very gently placing it upon her nose. She blinked and backed away from my hand, then looked at me accusingly.  **“There, now we’re even.”**   
  
**“Huh?”** she said, and I interjected again as her body language showed she was building up to object to the notion of my action being equal recompense for her treatment.   
  
**“You felt compelled to shake me about for making you feel bashful. I have felt compelled to boop your nose for the last few hours now. We’re even.”** I said, and smiled again, moving in a way that resumed our walk. She sighed and shook her head with a smile, but remained quiet, withholding anything she may have thought in response to to my rather odd statement. We continued in silence for a while more, then eventually came upon a strong river with a wide but steep embankment. Momiji positioned herself ahead of me and adjusted her grip on my hand to act as a guide rather than a companion.   
  
**“My home is down here, against the southeast wall. It’s probably not the kind of home a human would find preferable, but… it’s my home nonetheless.”** she said, expressing uncertainty about my judgement of her dwelling.   
  
**“Momiji, I’ve gone for long periods of my life** **_without_ ** **any sort of home.** **_Any_ ** **home is lovely to me.”** I said with a bit of a laugh as she guided me down a simple, camouflaged flight of stairs and along a flat, navigable segment of the riverbank a few feet to a somewhat ramshackle door set into the wall of an almost sheer face in the riverbank. It was high enough on the bank to be away from high water, and fascinatingly, was clearly some sort of burrow-type dwelling. It made sense to me, after barely a brief moment of thought, but then I caught a scent on the breeze that… somewhat made me think of urine? I was a  _ little _ concerned now, but I’d never dare admit that.  **“Is this your home?”** I asked as we approached the door. She paused and looked at me with uncertainty, watching me closely for my reaction as she spoke.   
  
**“Yes. A-again… it’s not a home meant for humans, and is… a mess…”** she said, clearly very hesitant to even open the door. I found myself looking back at her inquisitively, my brow raised.   
  
**“I really don’t mind, you know. You’re welcoming me as a guest, and I’m grateful for the invitation.”** I reassured her. She only smiled weakly.   
  
**“Well… I kinda put myself in a position where even if you had a complaint, you’re stuck with me anyway, so…”** she admitted.  **“Er… welcome, I guess…”** She then shoved open the door, and I was greeted with an odour that I only dare describe as ‘ _ powerful _ ’. It filled my nostrils and was completely unable to be simply tuned out and ignored - but that didn’t mean I had to say anything or react to it. I had no idea what it was or how to describe it in detail, but it was now more than a little concerning. I looked at Momiji, and she looked back apologetically, then stepped inside and held the door open for me to follow her in. I mentally shrugged and walked into her burrow, bringing the door closed behind me. I decided conversation was the best way to distract me from the scent.

 

**“Actually, a burrow home is really cool - they’re starting to come into style in the outside world as well. They’re very energy-efficient, with excellent insulation that keeps them cool on warm days and warm on cold days.”** I said, making small talk.   
  
**“Really?”** she said from somewhere in the dark, seemingly below me.  **“I mean, I already know that it usually feels comfortable in here, temperature-wise, but…”** I heard the sound of something metal and squeaky, then a match being struck and a warm glow as Momiji apparently lit an oil lantern.  **“If it’s something the outside world is adopting enough to be ‘in style’, that makes me feel a lot better somehow.”**

 

**“Hmm…”** I unintentionally mused as I stepped downward and into the light of the lantern with the white wolf. She looked over at me as I murmured, and raised a brow as if to ask what I was thinking, so I spoke.  **“Have you always used oil lanterns?”** I asked.   
  
**“Huh?”** she looked at me quizzically, then at the wobbling lantern in her hand.  **“Of course. I don’t have the mon for anything else.”** She looked back at me oddly. I looked back with a smile.   
  
**“The kappa have things like lightbulbs and whatnot, right?”** I asked.   
  
**“Eh?? Well, I think so? I don’t really know for sure. Why, what does that have to do with anything? They don’t usually offer luxury items when they trade, unless they know the buyer already has the mon or other items of interest to cough up for it.”**   
  
I gave a bit of a laugh.  **“I may as well be half-kappa. I tinker, I make things, I improve on what’s available, and can make things both efficient and convenient~! If you want a lightbulb in here, I can make it happen. You’ll never have to spend another mon for lamp oil again.”** I said, proselytizing the advent of electricity to Momiji’s home. It seemed that she bought it, for once she had a couple seconds to process and understand what I was implying, she promptly turned to face me directly, completely starry-eyed.   
  
**“Oh, oh! Would you!? Lamp oil is probably one of my most annoying purchases and I would very much appreciate not having that additional expenditure - especially now that there’s two of us here. You’ll be pulling your own weight, but if you’re going to live here with me, we’ll need to work together and make sure we pull for every mon we can get!”** she blabbered excitedly, the lantern bobbing between us. She was clearly sold on the idea of having ‘fancy’ electric lighting.I couldn’t help but laugh and lend to her excitement.

 

**“For you, certainly! You’re in a great spot for me to work on it when we have time between patrol, because I can tap into the power of the river there if I do it right. For as long as that river flows, you can have electricity for your home here - and that means light.”** I said to her, peering at the sparkling rubies that were regarding me with unchecked interest.  **“It’ll be a bit of work, and I’ll need to get my hands on some various materials and equipment, but I can definitely make it happen.”** She seemed ecstatic over the entire idea.  **“But first, let’s um…”** I gestured in the direction of what I believed to be the rest of her home.   
  
**“O-oh! Uh.. right. Er… please take your shoes off first - not that it much matters in the current state…”** she said, and sat upon a root to the side of the entryway to free her feet of her tall sandals. She set them aside, then stood back up to free the root for me to sit upon and remove my boots… but I was alarmed by how much shorter she was without her sandals. Remarkably, her height had been reduced to the point that only the very tips of her ears reached about chin-level on me. She caught me staring at her.  **“I-is something the matter?”** she asked, very concerned. Then her brow furrowed as she seemed to notice how much taller I was now, compared to her.  **“H-hey! Don’t be rude about my height--”**   
  
**“N-no no! Momiji, please understand, I actually uh… rather like it…”** I admitted with unexpected readiness, quickly gesturing with my hands to negate the wrong idea. She was rendered speechless, and a series of expressions played out on her face as she contemplated what I had just said.  **“Really, I’m not making fun of you or anything! I find the notion uh… well…”** I said, looking at my boots for a moment, then back at her.  **“W-well… let me just say that I** **_really_ ** **like it.”** Her expression flashed something along the lines of confusion and bother.   
  
**“Well alright… just… don’t make such a scene of it then…”** she said, turning her back to me. Incidentally, she obscured the lantern from being of any use to me, but I didn’t complain about it. I took a second to scrunch my nose and see if it did anything toward the scent that permeated her home. It didn’t. I leaned forward and undid the laces of my boots, setting them beside her sandals.   
  
**“Alright, shoes off~”** I said, standing up and walking over to her.  **“How big is it in here?”**   
  
**“U-um!”** she said with a start, and turned to look at me, then began to walk into the burrow. Reaching what I assumed to be a somewhat centralized spot, she turned in place and gestured with the lantern as she named areas.  **“...Not very big, really. I have my kitchen, my living chamber, my storage chambers, and my bedchamber--”** suddenly she stopped in place and turned to look at me with a complex look and clearly no way to express the jumble that must have popped into her mind. I offered a few possibilities.   
  
**“Human remains in your pantry?”** She shook her head.  **“Boyfriend is home?”** She looked surprised, then creased her brow and stepped over to hit me. Hard.   
  
**“I’m not in any such relationships!”** she said loudly.   
  
**“Ouch. I won’t be doing that again.”** I said, rubbing my arm to alleviate the ache.  **“Um… Does it have anything to do with the er…”** I said, and contemplated a polite way to approach it. I elected to simply tap my nose.   
  
**“A bit - wait, you can smell that?”** she said, surprised for a different reason this time.

 

**“Yeah. It’s…** **_really_ ** **powerful.”** I admitted. She suddenly looked embarrassed, and her hands made a variety of half-gestures as she contemplated how to speak.   
  
**“I… uh… well… I have a bit of a problem…?”** she started, fumbling to put a sentence together. I tilted my head slightly.  **“E-er… I kinda got used to it and barely even notice it anymore because it’s been going on for decades, but… ah…”**   
  
**“Is it anything that I can help you with?”** I offered. She suddenly froze, and contemplated me intensely, for a long few moments.   
  
**“Probably not?”** she said questioningly, then stepped closer to me, still looking me over.  **“....maybe. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try.”** She stepped even closer, and was looking at me strangely.

 

**“Well, what’s the problem?”** I queried.   
  
**“Uh… overbearing suitor.”** she said flatly. That was not quite what I expected, but it made me realize what the scent probably was. The realization likely showed in my expression, as she rushed to her own defense.  **“I don’t like him! I have never once interacted with him any more willingly than I interact with Shameimaru-san!”,**   
  
**“Relax, it’s fine, really… I didn’t think anything ill of you, Momiji, I simply realized what the smell is.”** I said, and smiled to her, stepping closer to her and looking around. It really was a mess. The burrow was arranged to look a lot like a typical Japanese-styled home, with wood and tatami flooring, walls painted and shored in a way that complimented the shouji separating her chambers. The tatami was clearly old and deprecated, the shouji were dirty, stained, and damaged, there were boxes and litter of various kinds strewn all over what could be seen in the lantern’s light… we obviously had a bit of work ahead of us if we were going to clean this place. She at least didn’t seem to be a hoarder, but she also didn’t seem to have any organizational skills at all. I took all of this in silently, then looked back to her.  **“So how do you think I can help with it?”**   
  
**“Uh… well, considering the issue, it’s a little more disgusting than what I had thought we’d be cleaning, but…”** she looked around and sighed.  **“That’s pretty much it, to start with. Cleaning.”** she proposed.

 

**“That I can do.”** I realized something, and decided to5 **_._ **  ask.  **“Wait… does this guy just waltz into your home and… well… spread his scent around?”**   
  
**“Yes, pretty much. I’ve told him time and time again to stop. It’s always when I’m out on patrol, and for a long time it made me really worried that he’d try to break in and have his way with me while I was home, but thankfully only this much is the extent of the damage. I even tried moving to a new place and he just marked there too.”** She sighed angrily.  **“I can’t stand the animalistic bastard, to be frank, especially now that it’s involved you. I wish I had thought about it earlier.”**   
  
**“Well, now I feel more okay with admitting that even since we were outside I thought that the odour was very offensive. I’m quite relieved to know that it’s something undesirable and can be cleaned out, but now I have two new concerns.”**   
  
Momiji turned back around to face me inquisitively.  **“Two?”**   
  
**“Yeah. First… say we go through and clean out every trace of the scent. We get this place nice and spiffy - smelling like lilacs or some other flower. Won’t he just come in here while we’re gone and piss on our parade all over again?”**   
  
**“Probably - that’s why I said at first that you probably won’t be able to help. I may have an idea or two for getting around that, but we’ll see.”** she replied.

 

**“Alright, we’ll have to see what works then.”** She suddenly blushed bright and nearly dropped the lantern.  **“Woah, easy there..!”** I said, and made to catch the lantern if she slipped. She collected herself after a brief moment, and cleared her throat. I looked at her to make sure she was okay, then I went ahead with my second concern.  **“Well uh… as for concern number two, then. If this guy is basically marking you as belonging to him, I know full well that this puts me into a bit of a troublesome situation. The moment he discovers that I exist, I will basically have a gigantic neon billboard that screams ‘kill this bastard, he’s making moves on your woman’ hanging over my head, and he will be on a manhunt out for my blood.”** I sighed.  **“And mentioning that actually makes me realize a third concern. If he’s already this much of an overbearing shitwagon, what he may do instead of or in addition to coming after me, is go after** **_you_ ** **in the name of finalizing his claim.”** I pointed out. She pondered this with a worried expression.   
  
**“I-in other words… now that you’re here, I need to come up with a way to deter him in a more permanent fashion…?”** she asked me in a rhetorical manner. I answered anyway.   
  
**“Uh… well, if you don’t want him coming after either of us … Yes.”** I said. Momiji looked at me, possibly mortified by the conundrum brought about by our thoughtlessness. She looked around her home, seeming a bit lost. I walked over to her and reached out to put a hand on her shoulder and help her calm down.  **“You said you had ideas to deter him, so I’m sure we’ll manage.”** I said, hoping to reassure her. She looked up at me, still seeming to be on the verge of panic or deep upset.  **“Here, here… focus on your breathing, and…”** I leaned forward a bit and closed my eyes, tapping my forehead. For a long moment, nothing happened, and then I felt a chill damp as her stressed forehead gently landed upon mine. I opened my eyes to see if she was looking at me again, but this time her eyes were closed and she seemed to be concentrating, so I closed my eyes again and carefully brought my hands to her upper arms. She gave a bit of a start, but I started from there and guided my hands down to find hers - when she figured out what I was doing, she raised her hands and quickly interlaced the fingers of both her hands with my own.   
  
**“S-sorry for this, Kit… I should have thought about this before I brought you in…”** she apologized.   
  
**“It’s okay, Momiji. We’ll take care of it somehow. Just breathe and think. Two heads are better than one, as we say in the outside world. If we work together, we’ll figure it out.”** I assured her. I felt her nod against me, and I continued.  **“Well, let’s see… the first order of business is to clean out his scent, right?”** she nodded again.  **“Okay. That’s no problem, and we can tackle that with no trouble. What should we do next, then?”**   
  
**“U-um… to be honest, I’m really not sure. That’s what I’m stuck on…”** she admitted.   
  
**“No worries, let me try.”** I gave her hands a squeeze and thought about it quietly for several moments before having an idea.  **“Well, your door is a little ramshackle, so maybe we can try to make a more sturdy entry? I don’t know how much it would deter him, but it may inconvenience or even stop him from being able to break in, and that’s a start.”** I offered. She nodded strongly.   
  
**“I’m not a craftswoman or carpenter - I did the best I could with what I could get my hands on, but as you can see… it hasn’t served much purpose.”** she sighed. I started to slowly swing our hands from side to side, hopefully in a way that was relaxing.   
  
**“Well, we can try to fix that. If we can make an entry that will keep him out, it will keep us safe while we’re home, and also keep him from breaking in and fouling the air with his stench while we’re away. If we then make it a point to always leave and be outside together, it will help as well.”** I suggested. This was alright for security, but likely wouldn’t deter or get him to stop. If he’s been after her for decades like this, it will take a lot of time and effort to get him to stop - if he’ll stop at all.  **“Uh… out of curiosity, is this whole scent thing normal for wolf tengu…?”** I asked her. She shook her head.   
  
**“Not… exactly? I mean, this is one of the possible ways that a male’s scent is used, but…”** she said, and paused to consider her wording.  **“Eh… it’s a bit like he doesn’t understand that this is... “** she trailed off.   
  
**“Socially unacceptable?”** I offered. She simply nodded.  **“So let’s see if I understand how this works, then…”** I inhaled, sighed, and thought for a moment, then started to come up with a scenario.  **“Let’s say that you, as a female wolf tengu, are receiving suitors. What is the correct way for a male tengu to approach you?”** She suddenly laughed and seemed to relax a bit.   
  
**“Same as humans, for the most part. Talk to me, meet with me, things like that. There’s no inconvenient rituals or processes for an average tengu like me to open or close a relationship.”**   
  
**“Oh. So where does the scent come in, then?”**   
  
**“It usually doesn’t, really. Some use it to establish the borders of their homestead, some use it competitively, a lot don’t use it at all. For the most part it’s just an extension of an individual’s identity, to say that something belongs to them or that they have been there.”**   
  
**“So in both human and tengu culture, this guy is just being a royal creep?”** I asked. She nodded, her forehead considerably less clammy and stressed. I sighed loudly and idly tugged and pushed our hands back and forth in the space between us.  **“Now I kinda just want to give him a good beating and tell him to knock it off. I doubt I have the skill required to pull that off, and I have a feeling you’ve probably done so yourself a few times, huh?”**   
  
**“A-actually… I haven’t. I could, I suppose… I mean, I don’t want to hurt him for being interested in me, but… at the same time, I don’t want this to become a bigger problem.”**   
  
I opened my eyes and nudged her subtly to get her attention. Her eyes opened as well, and I took a second to appreciate them before speaking.  **“Momiji. He’s being a creep. You’ve asked him to stop, and he hasn’t. He has made you uncomfortable, he’s made you feel unsafe, he has trespassed into your private home - worst of all, while you’re away from home, and now unforeseen circumstances have brought about a situation where his involvement has once again made your home life unsafe. If it takes a beating to get the hint across, then he** **_needs_ ** **a beating.** ” She contemplated me for a moment, her eyes and focus very subtly shifting as she looked at either of my own.

 

**“Mm! I can give it a try if he comes around again.”** She smiles a bit.  **“And I do have another idea…”** she blushes very brightly, but doesn’t break contact.   
  
**“And what might that be?”** I said, still idly messing around with our hands as we stood in the light of the lantern.   
  
**“Well, it may help, but it might also make things worse, and if it makes things worse, he’ll be giving me a bigger excuse to beat some sense into him, I suppose.”** she paused and her eyes looked around for something else to focus on, but due to our position, her gaze just settled back onto my own eyes.  **“Eheh… if he wants to play this sort of nonsense with scent,** **_we_ ** **can use scent to get the point across as well.”** Her emphasis on ‘ _ we _ ’ didn’t escape me.   
  
**“Hm? But I don’t have that whole scent thing like wolf tengu. Humans aren’t built to use scent for that kind of communication.”**   
  
**“We can improvise. Humans have unique individual scents too, you just have dumb noses that don’t know how to utilize the information.”**   
  
**“Thanks. My nose is already problematic because it’s big, now it’s dumb too?”**   
  
**“Kit, don’t be like that.”** she chided me, giving me a look that read ‘ _ really? _ ’ with her eyes.

 

**“I’m just being silly. But uh… how… exactly… are we going to use scent then?”** I inquired, worried about the answer, but also curious. Her earlier emphasis had implied something that I was both hoping that it was, and hoping that it wasn’t. And then I became more worried when she blushed deeply enough for me to feel the heat in her face.

 

**“I’ll mix your scent with mine in a way that can only be intentional.”** she said, confirming my worry and gripping my hands tighter as her eyes wandered, desperately looking for something else to look at that wouldn’t break our contact.   
  
**“Wha!? M-Momiji, you… you don’t mean…”** I asked hurriedly. She pressed her forehead against mine to make sure I wouldn’t back away and locked her eyes to mine, asserting her presence towards me.

 

**“T-that’s uh…c… certainly… er... one way to do it…”** she admitted with trouble, conflicting with her body language. The warmth between us grew intense and suggestive, and again I was reminded of the fact that I would be entirely unable and unwilling to reject her if things went that way. My frustrations voiced themselves, unbidden.

 

**“Y-you didn’t say no! Momiji..!”** I lightly rattled her hands between us and pressed my forehead right back toward her. I didn’t know what else to do or say.  **“Y-you… you should have said no!”**

 

**“O-okay okay! We don’t h-have to do it that way anyway, I was just being honest!”** she stammered and fought back against me. She seemed both relieved, but also slightly disappointed.

 

**“I wouldn’t have objected if that’s the way we went, and that’s exactly why it’s… not…”** I stopped pressing against her forehead and tried to relax again since it sounded like there were options.  **“I don’t want to take things that way with you too soon, Momiji. I want a very long-lived relationship with you, and I’m worried that if we jump into the intimacies the same day we’ve met…”**   
  
**“I know, Kit… it’s…. It’s a mutual ‘predicament’, as you say…”** she said, and smiled. In a blatant attempt to reassure me, she moved in and brushed the tip of her nose against mine. It worked.  **“Besides. We’re supposed to be denying Shameimaru-san the pleasure of being right like that!”** she said. I grinned and bolstered myself.   
  
**“That’s right!”** I said firmly, then lowered my volume.  **“That uh… was a little close, though.”**   
  
**“M-more than a little.”** she corrected. I simply nodded.   
  
**“In any case..!”** I said, marking the end of that topic.  **“So… what’s another option, then?”**   
  
**“Saliva.”** she said succinctly, probably because no sooner had she said it than another wave of heat coursed from her.   
  
**“Like… a kiss?”** I asked. She nodded, and things immediately became tense again.  **“I’m… a lot more okay with that…”** She however, wasn’t as okay with it as she thought she was. She almost promptly turned into an oven.

 

**“K-Kit… um…”** she fidgeted with my hands  **“I… I know this was my idea and all…”** she seemed unable to continue, and this time I couldn’t clearly surmise her intent. I held her hands warmly and waited for her to continue when she could. It was barely even a moment.  **“I’m… not sure how to uh… once we’ve… how…”** she stopped talking, gave a frustrated face and inhaled, then sighed deeply.  **“I-if we kiss, how would we apply our scent blend… um…. somewhere else?”** Her shyness was strongly contagious, and had quickly transferred to me.   
  
**“We… couldn’t, to be honest. I don’t think that’s… well, for what we need it for, a kiss wouldn’t help us. We’d need another way to mix...”** I admitted. My heart was racing, though, and we were already in contact… her lips were right there-- I carefully shook my head to interrupt that line of thought. It disturbed contact with Momiji, and she spoke up.   
  
**“Kit…?”**   
  
**“S-sorry… my train of thought was running away down the wrong tracks.”** I took a breath, and thought for a moment, gently working my fingers between hers as I contemplated. It helped me have an idea.  **“Momiji, do you have some sort of clean rag or cloth?”**   
  
**“Huh? What for?”** she queried, subtly tilting her head as one of her ears twitched against the top of my noggin.   
  
**“Well, something absorbent. It would be able to soak some up from both of us and then we could put the rag itself wherever we need it.”**   
  
**“Oh! That’s a good idea - but I don’t know that I have anything I’d… wanna put in my mouth, you know…?”** she said.

 

**“Even if we wash it in the river and dry it first?”** I suggested. She thought for several moments.   
  
**“Well… maybe, but only if it’s washed really,** **_really_ ** **well.”** she conceded. It made me wonder if it was something really gross, and suddenly I didn’t like this idea anymore.   
  
**“....What is it, first?”**   
  
**“Somewhere…”** she said, and adjusted her forehead against mine to look around a bit at what could be seen in the dim light of the lantern.  **“I have an old sarashi that I can’t use as anything more than a bandage now. I don’t remember what injuries I have used it on or if any of it is usable at all.”**   
  
**“Oh, that should be fine if we can find it and get it clean enough.”** I said.  **”Do you know where it is?”** She just shook her head.   
  
**“Honestly, we should start cleaning now that we know what we’re going to do. It’ll turn up somewhere in the process of that.”** I nodded in agreement. But then a new problem surfaced. I waited a moment, and by listening to the happy swish of her tail, it seemed Momiji had the same problem. I smiled because I couldn’t help myself.   
  
**“Hey, Momiji~?”**   
  
**“Hmm?”** she hummed pleasantly, which gave me quite a stir. I had to take a breath before I could respond.   
  
**“I think we might be stuck again.”** I said. She laughed happily and lightly pressed her forehead against mine.   
  
**“I have no idea what you’re talking about, silly man~”** she replied. I smiled and pressed my forehead against hers in kind.

 

**“But Momiji~”**   
  
**“Yes, Kit?”**

 

**“What if I wanna finish the tour of the house~?”**   
  
**“The house isn’t going anywhere, you know~”** she teased.   
  
**“Neither are we, you know~”** I teased right back.  **“I mean, I can think of ways to get us going** **_somewhere_ ** **\--”** she suddenly freed one of her hands from mine and hit me in the shoulder, right in the same spot she had hit me before.  **“Ouch!”**

 

**“I want something long-lived too, and if you’re going to keep me from doing rash things, I’m going to do the same in kind.”** she said firmly, looking at me straight.   
  
**“Y-yes ma’am…”** I said. I didn’t mean to come off as serious, so I felt a little hurt by the response. She turned her gaze downward.

 

**“Honestly, though... as weird as things have been for the both of us today, we really shouldn’t... make things worse for ourselves… you know?”** she said, uncertain of herself.  **“I like you, Kit. I like you a lot, and I want to keep liking you… maybe more… so…”** she said, trailing off. She was asking me to not let her down after lifting her up the way I have. I set a really high bar for myself, and it was going to be hard to maintain, thinking about it. She was basically throwing me a bone. I decided that I’d bite - so I nodded.   
  
**“I understand. Thank you for the correction, in this case.”** She looked up again, her expression something I couldn’t quite read.

 

**“It’s… not really meant as a correction, exactly… more like…”** she paused, and tipped her head from side to side against my forehead as she contemplated. Then she stopped and made it a point to meet my eyes.  **“Relationships aren’t some mystical occurrence. As much as people might say things about stars aligning and horoscopes, relationships are earned. You said you wanted a relationship with me… well, I happen to want one with you, so if you slip in a way that might damage that...”** she said. I smiled and basked in her perspective by continuing where she left off.

 

**“...you’ll catch me, and then expect me to catch you if it happens to be you who’s slipped, right?”** she smiled back and nodded against me.  **“Relationships are decided upon and worked for. They are sought after, fought over, and won through nothing short of effort, communication, and understanding. Time is relative, not decisive.”** I brushed my nose to hers and she smiled.  **“And they are accomplished mutually. In a relationship, you and your partner are one and the same. You are comrades, taking on the woes of the world hand in hand, sharing burdens and helping one another, as your partner’s life is your life, and your life is your partner’s life.”** I said, speaking what I felt I had learned of relationships over the years. She beamed in response to the shared worldview, and brought herself closer to me, a fire in her eyes that declared she had made a new decision.

 

**“Work hard for me, and I’ll work hard for you.”** she said, and moved herself closer still, a blush growing thick upon her cheeks.  **“Earlier, you declared that you are already mine, right…?”** she asked me. I looked at her gentle expression, and nodded.   
  
**“I’ll declare it again, too. I believe that I belong to you, Momiji. I may as well have belonged to you even before today.”** I told her, and she flushed bright, getting my arms out of her way but freeing her hands and moving my own to her sides so she could step closer. She seemed to be contradicting her intent from a moment ago, but something in her expression suggested that she wasn’t going against her intent at all.

 

**“Rather than you belonging to me… how about you being my** **_comrade_ ** **instead?”** she asked me, her expression getting warmer, like the space between us. I nodded, and then I understood. She was still pursuing a long-term relationship, and was only declaring it as established  _ now, _ so that our pursuit of mutual happiness could be carried out in peace. She didn’t believe herself to be acting prematurely or on a whim, this was merely ‘ _ the start of something great _ ’.

 

**“I’ll be your comrade, if you’ll be mine.”** I proposed simply with a light smile, feeling like I understood where this was going. However, she still managed to surprise me - she didn’t answer with her voice, she answered with her entire being. She clutched the front of my shirt and used it to carefully draw herself against me. The movement pulled her forehead away from mine, but then she promptly propelled herself forward and upward, and her strong will activated my arms at her sides, aiding her in her plight until her nose gently slid beside mine. Our eyes closed, and the world disappeared around us as our lips collided - soft enough to cushion a butterfly’s wings in a storm, but with enough energy to demolish the sun.

 

Time stopped and absolutely nothing else mattered except for her. The very fabric of my existence coursed with primal forms of ice and fire flowing into me through my skin, before returning from whence it came through by exiting from my spine in wave after wave of relief, followed by excitement, followed by relief, followed by excitement… all of it singing a heavenly chorus of praises for the girl in my arms. And then after what was surely an eternity and an age, time reasserted itself. Her gentle lips clinging to mine with their own desperation even as she moved away, the world was restored to us both as our eyes opened, the first things each of us seeing consisted of nothing but one another, but not in the same way we had seen each other before we united our lips. There was no going back now, and the way we looked at each other in this new reality betrayed that.  **“Of course I’ll be yours.”** she spoke, as the first words in what may as well have been a new eon. I was overjoyed to hear those words. I was beyond ecstatic, and all I could do was slide my arms around her small frame to embrace what was now the most precious person among everything I thought I could possibly understand of the reality I live in. As I looked into the twin rubies with which she delicately peered up at me… and as I made to speak my gratitude…

 

I broke.

 

Her expression changed from one of love and glee to one of concern and worry as the first drop fell from me and landed on her cheek. And then another. Her ears flattened and she brought her hands up to my face.   
  
**“Kit!? What’s wrong? Was… was that too far??”** I gingerly held onto the wolf tengu and shook my head to try and assure her, but all I could do was cry. My voice abandoned me and I moved to try and sit upon the floor at her feet for reasons not even I could comprehend, but before I could manage, Momiji put herself under me as a small, gentle beam of support, intent on keeping me from curling to the floor. She then grabbed the lantern, guiding me elsewhere in her burrow.  **“Come this way… let’s sit somewhere comfortable, okay…?”** she spoke to me with affection and kindness, and all I could do was hold onto her and let her guide me. In the new chamber, she set the lantern down upon a low table and then lowered herself to sit upon the cushions all over the floor, tucking her skirt under her backside as she did. 

 

Once she was seated comfortably, she reached up and took my hand, then used her other hand to pat the cushions beside her. I tried to make my way over, but for whatever reason I couldn’t even manage that anymore - my vision was obscured by water, and when I went to sit beside her, I misjudged where I was and sat further away than she wanted. So rather than move, like the logical course of action would have been, I just leaned over, curled up, and rested the top of my head against the side of her skirt, and proceeded to cry. She gently lifted my head and moved herself over, setting my head upon her lap and running her fingers through my hair.  **“I do suppose you told me a long while ago that even though you seemed alright on the outside, you were broken on the inside. This must have been what you meant, huh…?”** she gently mused. Given that she wasn’t wrong, I nodded - but found myself unable to stop the flow of tears. Her skirt was already damp, and it had only been a moment. As I lay there, though, she tended and cared over me - removing my spectacles and setting them upon the table a short distance away from the lantern so she could use a hem of her skirt to dry my face unimpeded. Unbeknownst to her, however… her gentleness and kindness for someone such as me was a double-edged sword, deepening my love for the woman… and also deepening my unexpected despair. And then it dawned on me. I turned a bit to look up at her face, and when the tears intensified, I knew for sure. Rather, I knew all along and was simply deluding myself. I swallowed firmly and whispered, as it was all that was left of my voice.   
  
**“On the inside… I am a broken human who only knows how to put myself into situations that will deepen my brokenness…”** I told her once again, and reached over for her other hand to gently hold it in my own.  **“And now… a dreamer… whom has found the love of his life - in a dream.”** I tried to give her a smile to show her that despite the tears, I was happy for this turn of events, but trying to do so just brought forth another flow of tears.

 

**“Y-you….”** she started, but her expression grew somber as she looked at me, then she sighed and looked upon me with affection.  **“I guess I can’t rightly call you a silly man at the moment…”** she continued to gently run her fingers through my hair. After a long while of this, my unexpected despair subsided just enough to interact with her again.

 

**“Momiji…?”** I asked quietly. What was on my mind was very little beyond a stubborn desire to keep what I had just obtained. I had achieved a dream I would probably never had acknowledged as possible, and I intended to sustain it as true because it felt to me like a necessity.

 

**“Yes?”**

 

**“When I wake up sooner or later… could we still be comrades, even though it might take me ages to come back, and it’s possible we might never find a way for me to come here as anything more than a dream?”** I asked of her the most selfish question I possibly could have, and I felt both terrible and bold for it. She sighed and looked at me like I should have already known the answer.

 

**“Kit, you should already know that as a tengu, I will be much more long-lived than you, so six months or however long between your visits to Gensokyo will have next to no effect on me. I’ll miss you while you’re away, but as long as you come back, it won’t be a problem on my end.”** She answered.  **“We didn’t put conditions like that on our companionship. We didn’t say ‘but only while you’re visiting’. We simply said that I am yours, and you are mine. As long as we each adhere to that...”**

 

I moved to sit upright, and then turned around to embrace her. She didn’t seem to expect it, but she held me close. I stayed with her in silence for another long while, but my mind was very busy, and maintaining contact with Momiji provided some amount of clarity. She slowly started to seem bored and perhaps a little annoyed, so I took a very deep breath, and exhaled, pulling away to look around and get myself comfortable on a cushion of my selection. The only thing in this room seemed to be the low table, the cushions, a broad stack of boxes with what I assumed to be newspapers… the table was stacked with papers and writing implements, as well as dirty dishes and cookware. There were some newspapers unfolded and laid out over the tatami in various areas as well. I inhaled deeply, and slowly exhaled to confirm to myself that I had calmed down a bit, collected my glasses from the table and donned them, then I looked to Momiji, whom had been watching me take in what had seemed to be her living room. I gave her a subtle nod for some reason, then tried to open conversation with something I had thought of while embracing her.   
  
**“Momiji… this might seem like a strange question, but… do you ever wake up and remember dreams, or at least remember or feel like you had a nice dream, but perhaps not remember what the dream was…?”** **  
**   
**“Eh? What’s this all of a sudden?”**   
  
**“Just…. An idea, perhaps. Not a very good one, but… it brings me a little reassurance.”**   
  
**“Uh… well, maybe? I can’t say that I have really paid any mind before. I don’t put any stock in dreams, and don’t commit them to memory. It’s a little odd for a tengu to say that, though...”** she said, looking a bit apologetic but not explaining herself. **“I mean, I feel like after today, I will approach the idea a lot differently, but… I don’t know, really. Sorry.”** She said. I elected to proceed with feeling out my hypothesis anyway. It was a bit of a moonshot, but she would either recognize something I was saying, or think I was losing my mind and going off on a tangent.   
  
**“No, it’s okay! Um… well, by any chance do you at all remember a recent dream of sorts? Something about being enrolled in a school, training, getting shown around a ship…?”** I starting inquiring, and as I started describing something, her brows raised and she stared at me very, very strangely.    
  
**“I... remember** **_something_ ** **… perhaps about a massive ship that was like a huge iron castle... and this man kept showing up every so often, acting like my caretaker.”** she said, turning to face me a little more squarely after she had recalled something she clearly didn’t think was worth committing to memory and was therefore surprised when she remembered it enough to say something. This was outrageously interesting to me, and held powerful implications that lent credibility to where my train of thought was going.   
  


**“And eventually, the ship and everyone on it packed up and the ship went among the stars? And then later you flew around the stars in your own, smaller ship, and that caretaker man had to come and fetch you using another small ship like the one you were using?”** I asked more specifically, feeling a need for a bit more info before I reached a conclusion.

  
**“Yes, exac - how do you know that…?”** she said, and then sat upright a bit more, staring at me with something akin to suspicion.   
  
**“I have no idea, all I know is that I was there with you - in fact, I was the one who was supposed to be your caretaker. It was my job to take care of you because you were a pilot and afforded a little more luxurious treatment on the ship… but you kept getting me in trouble because you’d always give me the slip and find somewhere weird to sleep! There was one time I got called all the way to the other end of the ship because you had somehow gotten yourself locked in an airtight cargo bin and scared the inventory manager into thinking you were a corpse because of how sound asleep you were. I was almost fired on the spot and tossed in a cell!”** I grasped her shoulders and gave her a very light and playful shake.  **“You were a bloody narcoleptic, complete with cataplexy, and everything you did ended up being blamed on me!”**   
  
**“Huh? But that doesn’t even make sense! How did you experience a dream** **_I_ ** **was having? Why would they blame you for** **_me_ ** **slacking on the job?? Was I dreaming of the outside world? What is cataplexy?? This would make more sense if I had gone to** **_your_ ** **dream, but I didn’t know you before today and I don’t exactly… have that ability… I don’t think?”** she suddenly unleashed an outpouring of questions for me to answer. If it had been at all possible, surely she would have had swirls in her eyes and question marks for a thought bubble. Nevertheless I provided for each of her questions.   
  
**“Cataplexy is basically the part of narcolepsy where the body loses motor control and you collapse, sound asleep.”** I explained.  **“As for the how I know and why they blamed me… I** **_don't_ ** **know, but the experience and now the knowledge that it was a** **_shared_ ** **experience has given me an idea on a possible way we might be able to see each other a bit more regularly. And no, you weren’t dreaming of the outside world - whatever we were dreaming of is fictional, both to the outside world and to Gensokyo.”** I rattled off excitedly.  **“Dreams are weird, and I feel like there's more to it than what I understand at the moment, but I posit the possibility that at some point you and I were asleep and dreaming at the same time, of the same thing, and happened to cross paths.”** Momiji was skeptical, but shrugged and tried to relax, scooting herself and her cushion over so that she could get away with leaning gently against me now that I was sitting upright.

 

 **“I don't really remember my dreams though, Kit. If we’re going to be meeting in dreams, I feel that it would be important for me to be able to remember them…”** she said, getting comfortable.  
  
**“Well, there is the possibility that some mental training and practice can help with that, but due to the vast amount of unknown factors and variables, it will do little more than raise the percentage by a margin. There are no guarantees with that sort of thing unless verifiable evidence can be produced--”**  
  
**“Kit, please…”** she interrupted, a little exasperated and pressing the side of her head against my shoulder for emphasis. **“You’re starting to** ** _sound_** **like a kappa, and this has nothing to do with technology. The way you’re speaking isn’t something I comprehend as easily as things like strategy, tactics, and swordsmanship, so…”**  
  
**“Ah, sorry.”** I said apologetically. She was essentially telling me that I needed to word myself in ways that are more within her understanding - which was a fair enough interjection. I contemplated what I was trying to say, and tried again with metaphors she might understand more clearly. **“Hmm… well, I’m sure you understand the notion of mental exercises - things for mental fortitude and willpower and the like - but what I’m implying would be more along the lines of meditating and reaching zen, though perhaps without the faith connotations. All I was trying to say before is that much like you can’t predict every single swing and thrust of every blade in a battlefield with thousands of warriors when you’re wrapped up in the middle of it all, we can’t really predict how successful the exercises will be. At best, it will give a boost to your chances of successfully remembering all or part of a dream after you wake up. At worst, it will accomplish nothing noteworthy at all aside from the peace that comes with meditating.”**  
  
**“See, that makes** ** _much_** **more sense to me.”** she said and rubbed her cheek against me. **“All that kappa-speak makes my head spin though, I’m sorry.”** she turned her face upward to look at me, and it was the cutest thing I had seen all day - my heart leapt in my chest and I leaned slightly so I could brush the tip of my nose against the tip of hers. She did the same, simultaneously. **“Hehe..~ So are you feeling better, then?”** she queried. I nodded with a smile.  
  
**“A bit. Unfortunately, that particular issue never fully goes away, it just kinda subsides and lays dormant before suddenly coming back and giving me a stern smack in the knickers for no reason at all. My brain has more than a few crossed wires, so I have a handful of mental quirks and troubles - that was… er,** ** _is_** **one of them.”** she gave me a look of pity and I knew that I had to clarify. **“M-Momiji, I’m not daft or mentally retarded, so don’t look at me like that… it’s just that some things are a lot more difficult for me than they should be. Like, one of my problems is called ‘discalculia’ - it basically means that my brain jumbles numbers and makes it almost impossible for me to do mathematics without significant effort and concentration, and I also can’t remember things like dates. It also means that I have a lot of trouble judging or estimating distances, and have difficulty with quantifying the passage of time, among a variety of other things mostly revolving around numbers and their application.”** I said. Her expression of pity had given way to one of curiosity instead.  
  
**“That’s… I guess it honestly wouldn’t be too hard to manage without a lot of those things when it comes to daily living, but that sounds really uh…”**  
  
**“Inconvenient and frustrating? Yes, very.”** I nodded affirmation. She brought a finger to her lips and contemplated for a moment, then asked a new question.  
  
**“You said that’s just one of your problems though… how many other problems are there…?”**  
  
**“Well, there’s my attention defecit hyperactivity disorder, there’s--”** I began.  
  
**“W-well explain them for me, please… one at a time?”** she quickly interrupted once again, this time to keep me from listing without explaining.  
  
**“Oh, of course. Sorry.”** I said, and cleared my throat a bit. **“Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder - or ADHD - basically infers that my attention span is poor. I have immense difficulty concentrating, focusing, and staying devoted to one task until completion due to hyperactivity - I fidget and have tics, my thought processes are very much like a hurricane on a constant basis…”** I said. I didn’t know what else to explain about it though - it was a fairly straightforward issue. She skipped the rest of inquiring about my specific complications for a more societal inquiry.  
  
**“So… the outside world has named and categorized these sorts of things? Why? Wouldn’t it just be easier to let natural selection run its course? As terrible as that sounds from the perspective of a human...”**  
  
**“It doesn’t that sound ‘terrible’ to me, but that’s also part of my mental complications - and the fact that I don’t exactly have any particular attachment to humans as a species aside from being born as a part of it - not that I asked or wanted to be. Personally, I think that yes, it would be much easier to let natural selection run its course - but this is what has become natural selection for the outside world, as difficult as it might seem, or perhaps actually be. Mentally complicated people now have a valid place in the world’s functions in many cases, so natural selection doesn’t cut them out of the equation like what might be normal here in Gensokyo.”** I said, further framing the difference in culture between here and out there. **“Moving on from that, though... they’re mental disorders. For one reason or another, either due to physical defects or experiences during a child’s developmental ages, certain detrimental flaws play a negative role in that person’s ability to function in regards to a variety of broad and/or specific tasks or societal norms. The outside world has spent a lot of time studying these mental complications and classifying them so that people like me who ordinarily would struggle and flounder in society without assistance can understand or have someone who understands what exactly is wrong with us and where we can best be applied.”**  
  
**“That… seems a bit strange to me, but I suppose there are things about life here in Gensokyo that surely must seem strange to you, so I perhaps shouldn’t judge negatively.”** she said, seeming a little confused.   
  
**“Well, humanity in the outside world - for all of it’s flaws and terrible shortcomings - tends to form communities, nations, and organizations of people who will all take care of and support one another when and where they can - that’s the basis of a community, in a sense. Before, when mental complications weren’t understood or accepted, people who had these complications were often discarded, left behind, treated unfairly, or made a mockery of. It was cruel and terrible, especially since people like me didn’t have a say in the way we turned out, this is just the hand we were dealt. The study and acceptance of these complications have allowed people like me, and the society we live in, to better understand what makes people like me tick - so that once everyone knows what sorts of things I am better suited for, I can still contribute meaningfully to society instead of being a waste of space and breath.”** I babbled about my viewpoint of the outside world’s society far longer than I intended to, but Momiji was still ever attentive.  
  
**“Oh. Well I guess that makes a lot of sense, when you put it that way. Rather, it may even be a better way of going about things, though I can’t say that I know enough about the minds of other people to quite wrap my head around it. I’m a guard, not a scholar.”** she conceded. I shrugged.  
  
**“And I’m a scholar, not a guard.”** I replied to her with a smile, implying that there was potential for us to make up for one another’s shortcomings. She smiled and tucked herself under my arm and we settled in to get ourselves more comfortable before we continued conversing. **“It certainly** ** _seems_** **to be a logical way of looking at it, but there’s still some aspects of the whole social idea of it that I can’t claim to understand. Like, I get that people should be able to meaningfully contribute to their community in some way, but the outside world quantifies that by how much money you make, discarding the notion of whether or not you make people smile and feel alive. In the outside world, even with all of this awareness and understanding, I was still a useless lout even for all of what i can do. I create in a lot of ways, and strive to make people happy, but because I had no focus on money, I was considered a failure.”**  I lamented. Momiji gave a short sigh before looking at me from the corner of her eye.

 

**“To be quite frank, Kit… it isn't much different here. Money makes the world move, so if you can’t make money, you don’t eat. This isn’t some paradise where you can escape your obligations to the world, you know.”** she said, and looked down at her skirt, smoothing it with her palms.  **“If you’re going to live with me, you’re going to work and do something meaningful, or you’ll starve. I don’t know anything about these mental complications or whatever, but if you have hands and they can till earth or pull weeds, you can work with me in the garden. If you can put one foot in front of the other and have eyes to look around you, you can walk with me to help on patrol. You’re a blacksmith, and that’s a valuable skill here, so use that when we’re not on patrol, and simply strive to not be a burden.”** she said sternly, looking back at me with worry - not a worry for my sake, but a worry that said she suddenly felt like there was a significant chance I might turn out to be dead weight. It was a look that hurt, especially because it wasn’t misplaced, and because it was not the response of kindness or understanding that I thought I might get from her. I looked at my hands.

 

**“Y-yes ma’am… I will try my best, but please allow me to ask for understanding if I stumble or have difficulty…”** I said quietly. She suddenly slipped her hand into mine.   
  
**“That’s certainly something that can be afforded my comrade. For what it’s worth, I believe I can trust that you certainly will try your best. Please show me that my faith in you isn’t misplaced.”** she said very calmly as her tail curled around my back and flopped upon the cushion beside me, like a side-hug without using her arms. She softened her expression, probably noticing that my own had fallen poor. Then she gave a short sigh and felt a little uneasy under my arm.  **“Er… wasn’t there something you were looking forward to once we had relaxed?”** she said, fiddling her hands atop her skirt. She was referring to my interest in her ears, and was aiming to cheer me up. That alone was plenty for me to feel better, and I felt very appreciative.

 

**“Um… thank you, but it’s okay, Momiji… I know you’d rather I not, so--”** I started to say, but then she interrupted me by suddenly taking off her tokin, setting it upon the table, scooping up both of my hands, and raising them to her ears.

 

**“I’m saying it’s okay. Just…** **_please_ ** **be very gentle…”** she said, very quietly as she lowered her hands, leaving mine poised near her ears. I smiled affectionately from her consideration, though she wasn’t looking at me to see it.   
  
**“Then…”** I said as I very gingerly set my fingers around the outer edge of her ear. She stiffened with a sharp jerk, and froze in place, so I kept still for a moment until she relaxed a bit and appeared to become comfortable with my contact. As they had looked, her ears were  _ amazingly _ soft - the fur that covered them was very fine and fluffy, and I just couldn’t help myself. I very gently stroked the outer edge in the direction her fur seemed to lay, and a very interesting thing occurred.   
  
**“H-hii~!”** Momiji instantly became stiff as a plank and her tail swooshed strongly to either side before also standing stock-still, directly behind her. Fascinated, I tried more, very tenderly running my fingers through the fur on the backs of her ears so that my fingertips found their way into the fur to caress the soft, warm skin beneath.  **“H-haaa~!! K-Kit! That feels…”** she exclaimed as her back straightened and she seemed to fight the urge to lean in various directions, her tail wildly twitching to random positions. In one last bout of curiosity, in direct spite of the fact that her reactions fueled a great stirring in my midsection that I didn’t quite understand in the moment… I very lightly caressed every curve of her fluffy ears this way, using my hands to appreciate them, not ruffle them. Momiji, however…  **“A-aaaah~!! Y-you didn’t tell me that-- Haa~ … this… that this was what you meaaaant~! K-Kiiit~!”** she said, her breath escalating into a heavy pant as she whimpered very loudly, a sound that bordered dangerously on the edge of being a lewd moan as far as my own ears were concerned. She tightly gripped the hem of her skirt and pressed it to the floor between her knees, sharply arching her back and lifting her backside off the cushions as she did so. Her tail had curled up as though getting itself out of the way, and she herself was positioned oddly - suggestively poised in anticipation, even - which caused me to unintentionally pause in my appreciations of her ears and subconsciously consider what was happening and what to do next, whether it be to stop, continue, or something  _ else _ . She didn’t let me reach a decision though, as my pause gave her the opportunity to turn her head away, removing her ears from my hands as she turned to stare at me with a mix of confusion, deep intoxication, strong desire, and perhaps no small amount of mild aggravation. Suddenly, I realized as though someone had slapped me with a chair that this exchange was  _ intensely _ concupiscent for the both of us, and I practically threw my own hands away from her in airborne directions as the surprise dawned on me.   
  
**“S-sorry! I didn’t quite realize i-it would… u-um...”** I said somewhat loudly, and snapped my hands to a non-dangerous position in plain sight, on my knees. Momiji took a moment to catch her breath and seat her backside back upon the cushion. Her aggravation faded, but she continued staring at me intensely with desire and confusion for a long while before inhaling deeply and holding her breath for a few seconds. She then exhaled rather loudly, relaxing and somewhat seeming to deflate as she did so. She very pointedly straightened her clothes and smoothed her skirt atop her thighs again in a blatant effort to recover her composure, before doing the same with her hair. She attempted to smooth her ears, but touching them seemed to be a bad idea at the moment as she jerked from her own contact and huffed in frustration over this situation before her hands retired to rest on her thighs. After a few moments of silence...   
  
**“It’s… I didn’t realize either, Kit. Really, th-that entire situation was very unprecedented, after all…”** she murmured with lingering traces of heat from the moment we just had. After a few more moments had passed and we both calmed ourselves, she gave a quiet chuckle.  **“I guess I learned something about myself there… but I think we should probably uh…** **_not_ ** **do that again until we’re more… er… ready for the consequences.”** she grinned mischievously and closed an eye to peer at me with a single, sparkling ruby as she spoke.  **“And don’t think for even a moment that I can’t tell it had the same effect on you, silly man. My nose is sharp. That scent of yours belongs to** **_me_ ** **, now.”** she said with an intense blush, bringing a finger from the hem of her skirt to tap the side of her own nose as she spoke, finally opening her eye again as she relaxed. I stiffened and averted my gaze, realizing she knew full well that she had aroused me just as much if not more than I had aroused her, even though neither of us meant for such things to transpire.   
  
**“S-still… I just wanted to a-appreciate them, not uh… turn you on…”** I stammered and looked at the tatami between my feet. She just laughed.   
  
**“You’re lucky I already know that, Kit. You were much too gentle to have had a sinister motive like that, so it’s okay. It felt very… uh, heh…** **_very_ ** **nice, but… I think you’ll understand when I ask that you** **_not_ ** **do that again until… y’know… we can go about the** **_remainder_ ** **of that activity without shame.”** she said. I just smiled weakly and simply gave her a nod of acknowledgement.  **“That’s twice now that we’ve almost played right into Shameimaru-san’s hand, too. We had better be more careful from here on.”** she chided the both of us with a chuckle.   
  
**“Y-yeah…”** I said. Truth be told, now that I had realized the effect it was having, I felt regret for having stopped - especially now that she’s put into words that she was interested in going through with the ‘remainder’. I dared not  _ say _ as much, however - our stubborn refusal of Aya’s suggestion was a matter of pride for us now. We wouldn’t be able to look her straight in the eye if we gave in to our carnal desires tonight like she predicted. I suddenly smacked my cheeks and shook my head vigorously, then looked at Momiji with my fire of desire redirected into the positive direction of productivity.  **“Let’s clean!”**   
  
**“No, let’s sleep. We can take all of tomorrow to clean, and Shameimaru-san is going to be stopping by early, remember? It’s already past sundown, so we should sleep.”** she said plainly, almost like a mother correcting her child. It was a little strange.   
  
**“Uh… okay. That’s… a good idea, actually…”** I said slowly as my train of thought derailed with considerable effort to accommodate, then I adjusted myself on the cushion before grabbing a few nearby cushions and tipping over to lay on top of them behind Momiji. I wasn’t tired, but I intended to do whatever Momiji aimed or wanted me to do. She stared at me for a brief moment, analyzing what I was doing.   
  
**“Kit, you’re not going to be sleeping in this part of my ima.”** she said simply, with a shake of her head. I looked at her quizzically.   
  
**“Do you have a spare room I can use, then?”** I asked. She opened her mouth to speak, then turned red.   
  
**“N-no… I can’t leave you in a separate part of my house right now, though.”** she managed to get out. My confusion only deepened, so I tilted my head slightly and looked at her questioningly before actually asking what I figured may have been the remaining option.

 

**“Then… I’m… in your room?”** I asked. She simply nodded, then picked herself up from the cushions beside me.  **“Well, wherever you want me is fine I guess, I won’t complain. Do you have a spare futon, or may I use some if these cushions?”** I asked.

 

**“M...my futon is large enough…”** she said quietly and stood there, looking at the table.

 

_ …Oh. _

 

**“U-um… I’m… joining** **_you_ ** **, then?”**  I quietly asked. She simply nodded again, and we both blushed furiously, then she shakily gathered up the lantern in silence. My mind went into overdrive.

 

_ Don’t make a big deal out of it don’t make a big dea- _

 

**“Kit?”** she shyly queried from across the room, standing in a doorway to the next room over. I jerked suddenly - partially from having not noticed her move away, and partially from her voice stopping my mind short.

 

**“Y-yes?”** I asked, sitting up straight to give her my full attention, already having forgotten what exactly I was to be doing.

 

**“Are you coming?”** she asked, lantern held high.

 

**“Y-yes ma’am!”** I said as the reminder filed into my head, and I hurriedly gathered myself from the floor to join her at the door.  **“Sorry… I know i shouldn’t have to ask, but… we’ll just be** **_sleeping_ ** **, right?”** i inquired. She suddenly hit me. Hard.

 

**“You** **_better_ ** **only be thinking of sleep, Kit. Nothing lewd, understand…??”** she asserted. I could only rub my arm as she spoke.

 

**“O-of course! I was only making sure, because i’m suddenly a little uh… well... about… you know… sleeping with… “** I tried and failed to admit my shyness, looking at the worn rice paper of the partition closest to me. She seemed a little hurt for some reason, but looked like she understood. She sighed and lowered the lantern, then slowly raised her hand to deposit it upon my chest.

 

**“I am too, but given the circumstances, I need to keep you within arm’s length for a while, even while we sleep. We can get you your own futon later after things calm down and you can handle your own, okay?”** she said, apparently thinking a little differently from me. I murmured an objection, her sharp hearing already having slipped my mind.

 

**“I** **_do_ ** **want to sleep with you, though… I’d feel safer and more comfortable…”** I said under my breath. I was immediately made aware of the fact that she had heard me.

 

**“You…! Kit!”** she said and very lightly slapped my chest, then lowering her hand to her side and staring at me with a mix of emotions.  **“Don’t you understand just how deviant this situation is…!?”** she said, including herself, me, our thoughtless greased-lightning pace, and our current relationship in her assessment of ‘deviant’. She wasn’t wrong, exactly, and I did feel a lot like we had rushed things - the pressure of my unpredictable duration in Gensokyo certainly spurred me to discard many of my usual inhibitions in favour of forging connections, but even so… this was a little much by my typical standards. I was certainly being shameless and cutting a few corners. After a few moments, I responded directly, but remained quiet with my tone.

 

**“It’s true though… it makes me happy to be beside you, so… I wasn’t complaining, I’m just shy… you’re my girlfriend and already getting to share a bed with you is… well, exciting, you know?”** I said, trying to remain calm so I could communicate to her what was on my mind. She turned red as a tomato.  **“N-not being lewd or anything, honest! I just… like the simple things, so even if you think nothing of it, it means a lot to me.”** I said calmly. She sighed and stepped forward, bumping her forehead against my chest. 

 

**“Kit… why do you go so far with what you speak? You say so many things to make me feel special, and I know you were aware of me long before I was aware of you, but you had no idea how I would actually be… and yet…”** she said, unusually nervous and clearly uncertain of how things had played out.

 

**“Momiji…”** I started, and slid my hands around to give her back a gentle rub. I was surprised by how solid and firm her back was, but gave her my affections through it regardless. **“Until today, my only goal involving the beautiful Inubashiri-san was to meet up and try to play at least one game of shogi in exchange for that book I ended up nervously giving you in silence before. If there had been anything more I had wanted to do with you before today, I would have asked for lessons in shogi so that I might grow into a player that could challenge and entertain you as a friend.”** I leaned forward and let my face rest between her ears before mumbling the rest adoringly.  **“I was attracted to you before then, but… truth be told, I wasn’t aiming to act on that before today… I just wanted to be friends. I don’t think very well of myself and had honestly long ago given up on the idea of being suitable for anyone, so I never thought you would treat me even a fraction as kindly as you have. You know…  because I’m just a human, and not even anything special, let alone anything that could be your equal. But then you treated me the way you did today, and it solidified my desire to do anything I could if it meant your life would be easier and happier - which quickly grew into the hope that I might earn your affections, or at least stay in your good graces as a friend. Your kindness and consideration, even though it was borne of curiosity, was more than I had hoped I would experience from you, and you made me feel valued as a result. I didn’t anticipate that I would fall head over heels in love… but I also never expected I would have the pleasure of seeing you again after that day either, yet here we are… you’ve got a weird outsider-dreamer human in love with you, and I’ve got a wonderfully kind, beautiful tengu cozily nestled against my chest.”** I murmured quietly into her alabaster hair while her soft ears lay upon my cheeks. I could feel the heat from her embarrassment pour from the top of her head and out of her ears like exhaust vents. I felt one of her hands slide to my chest, just beneath where her forehead rested.

 

**“Kit…?”** she murmured quietly.

 

**“Yes?”**

 

**“I haven’t accidentally bewitched you… right? You… don’t feel trapped or scared…?”** she asked, her voice laden with worry. It took a moment for me to realize quite what she was asking, but I smiled and held her close as I thought about it. 

 

**“I’m not bewitched, scared, or trapped, Momiji. I don’t want to leave, but I feel that if I did, I still have the freedom to go out into Gensokyo of my own will - I bet you’d advise me against it or try to convince me to stay, but I don’t feel like you’d hurt or terrorize me if I tried to leave. I’ve come to appreciate and love you completely of my own will and accord, okay?”** I tried to assure her. She didn’t seem entirely convinced, but I could practically feel the happiness slowly filter back into her. The fact that her tail was swinging broadly from side to side made it obvious, though.

 

**“That’s good…”** she said quietly and rubbed her face against my chest.  **“All of this is still really weird, but I feel a little better knowing you’re not like this because I’ve somehow bewitched you without meaning to or something. Really though, you should try to not flatter me so much - it’s really embarrassing!”** she mumbled with a relieved chuckle. I brought my hand to her chin and gave a very light bit of pressure to suggest I wanted her to look up - and she did. As soon as her sparkling eyes and her precious nose came into view, I brushed the tip of my nose to hers.   
  
**“I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything, y’know~”** I said playfully.  **“I like seeing you smile and blush way too much to just quit~!”** She suddenly pulled a face and huffed at me, but a grin forced it’s way through anyway.

 

**“You truly are a strange, silly man…”** she said, as if declaring it to the world. She suddenly kissed my nose and then turned on her heel to face away from me before I could react. I stood still as I absorbed what just happened, then smiled and put both of my hands upon her shoulders.   
  
**“I sure am~! Since it’s bedtime and this is an unfamiliar home, could you lead the way, O lovely Momiji~?”** I said, teasing her lightly. Her tail gave a flick between us and I could tell she was gearing up to fire a retort, but then she sighed and relaxed under my hands. I gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze, and she just started to walk into the next room - I kept my hands on her shoulders and followed after her like a trailer. She took me down a hallway and slid open a door to another area, seemingly quite some distance away from the river. Inside was a room just as messy as everything else - an unmade futon literally in the centre, large enough for four or five people for some reason… clothes and cushions strewn around it, more papers, a single, tiny table clearly meant to accommodate the lantern, and finally, a tall wardrobe and chest of drawers…   
  
**“Again… I’m really sorry about the mess…”** she said, hesitating briefly to look at me over her shoulder with a sincerely apologetic expression.   
  
**“We’ll take care of it soon enough, so no worries!”** I said with a smile, giving her a very light bit of pressure on her shoulders to spur her into forward movement again before letting go of her. She smiled back before entering the room and walking across the futon to set the lantern right where I figured it was meant to go. I stepped into her room and closed the partition behind me, then turned back around to see her removing articles of clothing - her tokin and sode were already tossed aside, and she was in the middle of removing her top.  **“M-Momiji?”** I said out of concern for what was transpiring. She turned to look at me.   
  
**“Hmm?”** she hummed inquisitively, apparently not recognizing the gravity of what she was doing.   
  
**“Er… well… I sleep fully clothed… is that a bother..?”** I asked, too shy to posit the query I actually meant to, which was to ask if she slept commando, because that’s more than a little outside my comfort zone.   
  
**“Not at all.”** she said succinctly, and slipped her uwagi(?) off the rest of the way, tossing it aside to stand there in nothing but her chestwrap and leggings. I navigated my way across the room to stand near her before turning my back to her and giving her the privacy to do what she was going to do.   
  
**“S-sorry, it never occurred to me that you might wear something else to bed… or nothing at all…”** I said, lowering myself to sit crosslegged upon the futon.   
  
**“H-huh!? I’m just changing into my yukata, Kit! I’m still in my sarashi and hakama, there’s no need to be all shy about that, is there?!”** she said in mild but playful annoyance, and mussed my hair from behind. I pondered this for a moment. If it wasn’t an issue for her, then there was no point in stressing it, so I just sighed and relaxed. If she felt comfortable changing in my presence, then it was my job to respect that and not  _ make _ it awkward. I tipped onto my back and looked up at her, suddenly noticing just how toned and defined her muscles were. I already figured her to be strong, but perhaps due to all the fanart of her, I never really pictured her to actually have this kind of definition. Everything about her was firm and lean, and it was extremely enticing - I found myself kinda wanting to feel every inch, so I diverted my attention to the ceiling while she rummaged through her wardrobe.

 

**“Hey, Momiji?”** I said to get her attention in a non-distracting way.

 

**“Hmm~?”** she calmly replied, and looked at me from under her arm.

 

**“How often do you train?”** I asked. She chuckled lightly and pulled a robe from the tall wooden wardrobe.

 

**“Certainly far more than you, it seems.”** she teased and patted her abs as if to mock my lack of her fitness.

 

**“Hey. Mean.”** I responded. She just laughed more, then gave me a serious response.

 

**“Well, I used to train daily when I was still living with family. I worked hard to be a patrol guard like my brothers and my father. My mother desperately wanted me to be a spiritualist like her, but it just wasn’t for me. I’m more suited for swinging a sword and defending the mountain.”** she said, starting to share details about herself that I had no way of knowing. It was interesting to learn that tengu had biological family. She slipped her arms into the sleeves of her yukata, but didn’t wrap it closed or tie her obi. She slipped her hands into the side openings of her hakama and turned her back to me as she continued.  **“I make sure to train at least every other day now. I usually work it into my mornings before I head out on patrol.”** She tossed aside her loincloth, then her sarashi, and her hakama dropped to the futon. I thanked whatever deities could hear me that her back was turned and she was obscured by her robe, because I surely would have lost my sensibility had I directly seen what just transpired. She promptly set about wrapping her robe about her body, tying the obi to her side, before reaching around to her backside and tugging her tail through a special overlapping slit clearly designed for exactly that purpose, and giving it a refreshing flick. She turned on her heel with a bit of a spin once she was decent, putting her hand to her hip and looking down at me, a very light blush on her cheeks. I suddenly noticed that her chest was much more voluminous than it had been a moment ago, thanks in no small part to a very telltale sway. Not obscenely large like certain articles of my past, or perhaps various artists may fancy to depict her, but still quite a lot more than I had gotten used to with her apparently having been bound by her sarashi. I blushed and redirected my gaze to the ceiling again, but she either didn’t notice, or intentionally ignored the fact that I had just been sizing up her bust.  **“Since I trained this morning, tomorrow can be devoted to taking care of other things we had planned. Aya’s interview will probably take up the time I would normally train, but I can take the day off from patrol so you and I can get around to cleaning. You have me looking forward to it, so I’m gonna work you to the bone!”** My attention quickly magnetized to her gleeful expression as she leaned over me, and I couldn’t help but smile. I gave her a playful salute.   
  
**“Yes ma’am~! We’ll have this place spotless by evening if we work hard~! I think we can afford to take a relaxed pace, to be honest - I hate to admit it, but I am tremendously out of shape - however, if you really want it done by evening, we can shoot for that. I may have to see about doing my own training regimen to be just a** **_little_ ** **less useless after tomorrow, though.”** I said. She laughed and flopped unceremoniously upon the soft futon, rolling onto her stomach and crossing her arms under her cheek. She seemed a lot more relaxed, and it made me feel more relaxed as well. I properly tipped backwards and lay upon the futon beside her - she turned her head to lay her other cheek upon her arms in a way that allowed her to look at me. I turned onto my side to face her, and she just laughed.  **“What?”** I asked. She just shook her head slightly, a grin parting her lips slightly and showing her teeth.   
  
**“It simply occurred to me that you’re the first man I’ve shared my bed with. I mean, my brothers have stopped by on occasion and I let them bunk here for the night, but… you’re the first not related to me, and the first whom I’m er… interested in.”** she admitted with a blush.   
  
**“I’m flattered by the notion, and will try not to disappoint my lovely ookami-tengu here~! I do have to admit, though - I feel like the reason is mostly because you put a lot of focus on your training and duties, and don’t make time for suitors… rather than there being a lack of folks who** **_want_ ** **to be in my position right now.”** I said. She just had herself a giggle.   
  
**“You’re not wrong, at least. I’ve had no desire for romance or men, and certainly have kept myself busy with training and duties. I’m not a homemaker or housewife, I don’t have any of the skills for that, and simply have had no interest in such matters. If I had wanted to, I could have picked one of several possible suitors - not that the selection was all that uh… great. There’s just something very unappealing about most of the men who have shown any interest. I could never see myself in a relationship with any of them, at least of my own will.”** she said. I pondered this briefly before responding.

 

**“And yet you seem to feel that there is something sufficiently different from that when it comes to me? Enough so that despite my being human, you feel that I’m worth the effort of pursuing a relationship with me even after having only encountered me for one day? I’m definitely not complaining - it isn’t every day that the woman of my dreams opens the door for a mutual relationship like this, and I’d have to be out of my mind to not take that offer… it’s just… I feel rather honoured and privileged that you think well of me in this way~”** I said with a warm smile. She blushed, then buried her face into her arms to hide a smile creeping onto her lips. She started speaking with her face still in her arms.

 

**“You might be human, but there is more than one very desirable thing about the way you handle your approach to me…”** She slid across the futon to bring herself into contact with me, then rolled so that her back was against my chest and my face was buried into her hair. I felt her tail lay across my thigh as she pulled the comforter over the both of us.  **“Unlike anyone else I’ve met, you don’t expect me to change or do anything differently to suit your own needs or wants. Everything you’ve said to me and everything you’ve done so far speaks volumes to the fact that you love me for exactly what and who I am, including what I do. This is what I chose to do with my life, so that’s something important to me, and I get the feeling that you’re supportive of that. I’m still getting accustomed to you, but I can tell that you’re not lying - you have been genuine with me, and I… well, I really like these sorts of things about you.”** she said. I curled against her and wrapped my arm around her middle, and she laced my fingers with her own as she continued.  **“The few others whom have shown interest in me… well, they’re not interested in** **_me_ ** **, they’re interested in what I** **_could_ ** **be. They want me to stop being a patrolwoman to be trained as a wife - stay at home, cook the food, bear and raise children, that sort of thing. Whatever** **_they_ ** **want me to do, and in ways that suit or benefit them with little to no consideration for my own needs and wants. It’s terribly suffocating and very bothersome to have my own desires undermined like that, and you’ve shown that you’re practically the opposite of that.”** She rolled over to face me directly, but kept herself firmly against me. I could feel her strength and grace, and the firm pressure of her body against mine was warm and intense - I loved it, and I embraced her broadly. She responded in kind by wrapping her arms around my torso and interlocking her legs with mine as we faced one another. Her voice lowered and her eyes wandered all over my face as she spoke again. **“Until today, I’ve had no interest in men, but you’ve shown me something important that I** **_really_ ** **want in a man. Maybe I’m being hasty, but I’ve decided that you’re what I want as a relationship partner, and… with the way things work in Gensokyo, I feel that I had best make it official and then keep you for myself before something else gets you. It’s… more than a little selfish of me, but I hope you don’t object when I say uh… that… I want you to be my… er…”** she said, trailing off in embarrassment, her face red as a tomato.   
  
**“Your boyfriend? Of course I don’t object, not at all. In the outside world, that’s what I would be to you already, even - you’re interested in me and are making a reservation, saying that I am exclusively your partner while you become familiar with me. It’s what comes before getting engaged - checking out the wares before you commit to the purchase, so to speak.”** I blushed almost as bright as her and brought my forehead to rest against hers. The act was already one of incredible relief for us both, and we calmed down quickly.  **“That way if you don’t like me, you don’t have to go through the shame and embarrassment of calling off an engagement - you can just break up with me if it doesn’t work out, and hopefully come away from the experience with a better understanding of how you are in a relationship and what you like and expect out of one.”** I explained. She clammed up and her grip around me tightened.   
  
**“I don’t want to think about things like marriage or engagement, Kit… definitely not this soon… I also don’t want to separate, either…”** she mumbled.   
  
**“I gathered that, which is why I explained, silly…”** I had a light laugh.  **“It’s not any different than what we’ve already established. We’re comrades - so I’m your boyfriend, and you’re my girlfriend. We’re mutually committed to one another - for the sake of becoming familiar with one another and seeing if perhaps… we’re uh… compatible for something more permanent.”** I said quietly. She nodded subtly against my forehead.   
  
**“Yeah… I like the sound of that better. Outside world customs are weird, but you humans out there seem to have a lot of things figured out, I guess. Boyfriend and girlfriend, hmm…? I knew the terms already, but… what uh… exactly does such a pairing** **_do_ ** **, exactly…? How is it different from… being engaged? Like… should we not be sleeping together?”** she asked. I blinked, but it was a simple question with a simple answer, I supposed. I thought it was a little odd that she didn’t already understand this concept, but then I just figured that perhaps it wasn’t exactly something she included in her pursuit of being a patrolwoman.   
  
**“We’re fine, Momiji. Whatever the couple is okay with, that’s what goes on. If the couple only wants to do things like hold hands and talk to learn about each other, they can - if the couple wants to do everything from kissing to pillow talk, they can do that too.”** I said. She gave me a quizzical expression.   
  
**“Pillow… talk? Is that some sort of game?”** she asked. I blushed, realizing I’d have to explain and that I wasn’t going to get away with skipping over what comes before.   
  
**“Uhm… well…”** I started, and cleared my throat a bit.  **“Pillow talk is… well…”** I paused, not knowing quite how to tackle the explanation.   
  
**“Kit?”** she said, her grip loosening slightly and looking at me with something akin to worry. I bolstered myself with an embarrassed smile. We’d already almost stumbled headlong into the act at least twice by this point, so it shouldn’t much matter by now if I explain another way of referring to it.   
  
**“It’s the relaxing, intimate and affectionate conversation that a couple would have following er… coitus. And includes the act itself.”** I admitted. The heat between our faces grew very intense as her blush sprung into life, which just made me even more embarrassed.   
  
**“I… I see… that’s a lot of uh… freedom to er… ‘check out the wares’, as you called it…”** she said, smiling as she attempted to insert a bit of levity. It inserted more than just humour, however… Her legs shifted and she gripped me a little tighter.   
  
**“I-indeed… s-so like… what happened earlier would have been normal and okay for us as a couple if we had… uh… you know…”** I said unwittingly. She shifted her legs more, locking them around one of my thighs as our warmth grew.   
  
**“T-that’s good…”** she said very quietly with a light smile, pulling her lips much closer to mine.  **“It… would have been nice to know that earlier…”** she practically whispered, her gaze slowly drifting between my lips and my eyes with an expression of clear want. She wasn’t even doing anything and she was turning me on something fierce.   
  
**“Why’s that…~?”** I asked just as quietly as her. Her legs shifted around my thigh, pulling herself tighter against me as her expression deepened. I moved my lips a bit closer to hers, inviting her.   
  
**“Well… we still need to mix our scent, after all…~”** she said musically, knowing full well what she was implying as evidenced by the smile under her heavy blush. I smiled and embraced her tighter, brushing my nose to hers. I had no desire to decline her advance - rather, I wanted her here and now. I felt one of her hands slide up my back and into my hair.   
  
**“That is true…”** I murmured, losing myself in her ruby gaze. Barely a moment passed before she simultaneously pressed her lips to mine and pulled against the back of my head. I felt her hips lock firmly around my thigh and squeeze, as if trying to keep herself from moving against me in her arousal. I pressed my lips back against hers and slid my own hand into her hair. Just as my fingertips reached her scalp, she turned her head and our kiss became much more passionate, separating and reconnecting quickly a few times to kiss rapidly as our breath grew heavy. Aya’s declaration far from my mind, I lowered my other hand to her backside and tipped to my back, gripping her taut rear firmly to tug her atop me. She allowed this much, but separated our lips to stare at me with an intense, drunken fire of passion, her grin showing pointed and slightly elongated canine teeth. Her hands firmly gripped my shoulders as she freed my thigh in favour of straddling my waist, preparing us both for much, much more. Her tail curled strongly from side to side as she firmly held this dominant position I had encouragingly put her into. We were fumbling with our hands on each other’s clothes when she suddenly stopped, causing me to do the same before I was able to free her of her robe. Slowly and with clear regret, her grin faded and she sat up straight upon me with a heavy sigh, her face pointed toward the ceiling.   
  
**“Curse that blasted crow…!”** she grumbled somewhat loudly, then sighed again and lowered her face to look at me apologetically. She was telling me without words that she remembered what Aya said. My judgement was sullied by the heat of the moment and I didn’t want things to stop here.   
  
**“Screw what she said, we can do what we want, can’t we?”** I said, unable to prevent my desire from making itself evident in my voice. She leaned forward and put both hands upon my chest, grinning broadly at me. With my hands grasped around her hips and her hips positioned perfectly upon my thighs to place herself right where we both wanted, her tail swished vigorously from side to side and only drove the point home, arousing me further.   
  
**“We most certainly** **_can_ ** **do whatever we want…”** she started, teasing us both by sliding herself forward slightly, pressing an intense, intoxicating warmth between her thighs against an effective portion of my anatomy,  **“...once Shameimaru-san leaves in the morning and we find ourselves alone long enough.”** she ended, a very playful and enticing grin flashing her teeth to me as she brought a hand from my chest to poke a finger at my nose. I was very disappointed that she declined the notion of continuing, but I smiled broadly and reached up to grab the front collar of her yukata in preparation to gently pull her down atop me again, this time driving my own warmth upward firmly to blend with the heat between her thighs. This  _ immediately _ restored the flames of her desire and her hips rocked upon me a few times, I drew her down to me for a deep, passion-fueled kiss and embraced her firmly. She went along with all of it and then upped the ante herself by expressing a powerful eagerness to let me take her anyway, her hips poised and more than ready to allow me access if I wished it. The lower portion of her robes had been raised and opened just enough that I only need reach down and position myself upward to receive her warmth upon me. Her eyes almost demanded it of me, even - I felt my mind swirling with the need to oblige, and my nostrils filled with the intoxicating scent of her warm sweat and her lustful preparedness, but somehow.. as incredibly tempting as it was, I was in full agreement of defying Aya, so I decided to not take the opportunity. I grinned deeply to her... and very gently turned to the side, holding Momiji in a way that lay her upon the futon beside me… but she kept her legs and arms wrapped tightly around me, begging in the hopes that I was merely securing a different position by which to boldly take her as mine.   
  
**“Tomorrow, then~?”** I said, voicing my agreement with her statement from a moment ago and hopefully reducing the sexual tension gently enough to make it a soft disengagement.  **“I’m sure we can fit a bit of fun into our busy cleaning schedule, you know~”** I mused, very lovingly kissing her nose. She sighed, just as disappointed as I was, and more than a little frustrated that I had stirred her up only to not do anything with it... then her legs unwrapped from around my hips and went back to comfortably interlocking with mine.   
  
**“Tomorrow. Providing our mood still burns hot, and you somehow still don’t have any objections… you will be mine.”** she declared as if making a royal decree, looking me squarely in the eyes with desire and mischief. I grinned and returned the favour.   
  
**“Likewise, lovely Momiji. I may even take the first opportunity I see after Shameimaru-san has left - I know just what to do to get you fired up now~”** I continued to lightly tease her.  **“Please be prepared~”**   
  
**“You too~!”** she cooed, pressing herself against me once again, this time full of love rather than the fires of lust.  **“I’ve gotten more of your scent and learned that I hardly have to do a thing to get you ready for me, so I may use that to my advantage~”**   
  
**“Well of course you hardly have to do a thing - I love you~!”** I confessed, straight out. She suddenly turned brilliant red and her expression changed to blatant surprise, which changed the entire mood to bashful affections.   
  
**“Y-you actually said it…”** she mumbled and her hands rushed to her cheeks as she looked at my face.  **“Are… are you sure you mean that??”**   
  
**“Of course I mean it. I’ve thought about it all day, and every little thing you do has only made me love you more.”** I said, shyly stroking her side for a few moments to calm us both a step.  **“Momiji… I really…** **_really_ ** **love you…”** I admitted again, looking straight into the sparkling rubies before me. She squirmed in my arms and made a sound only a happy girl could make before merrily kissing me once…. Twice…   
  
**“Kit, I still have a lot to learn about you in order to catch up to what you know about me, but from what I know of you so far… I love you too!”** she confessed right back, making it mutual before kissing me a third time and snuggling against me, her tail trying to flap as best as it could under the comforter. My heart raced and practically flew away. I almost cried again, but this time all I could do was laugh as I embraced her tightly, trying to burn the sensation of her in my arms deep into my memory - the way her sharp shoulder dug into my arm as she lay upon it, the firmness of her stomach versus the softness of her chest pressed against me, the thickness and sturdy strength of her legs as they happily coiled around mine… every single bit of this moment was deeply important. I needed to remember her expression of utmost glee, the pleased blush that rolled across both cheeks and splashed across her pert little nose, her soft lips curved into an uncontrollable smile that caused her elongated canine teeth to show, the wriggle that poured through her body thanks to the shameless wag in her tail…   
  
As I held this wonderful girl and snuggled her close, sparing a hand to very gently ruffle into her hair, I closed my eyes and got comfortable. She took the hint and did the same, tucking herself against me as we both prepared to sleep. I reflected on the day’s events - waking up on the side of the mountain, encountering Aya, going on a rather lovely and scenic patrol with Momiji, encountering Aya again, standing around in a clearing and fostering a bond with Momiji, her taking me home, our first kiss, the feel of her ears in my hands, and the intimate moments I shared with her just then…   
  
And then once I was tired, I removed my glasses, set them upon the small table next to the lantern, turned out the lantern itself, and a short moment later I fell asleep, wrapped protectively around the most important woman I could have found - the one I strived to meet six months ago, and the one I’ve been interested in for years before then. I felt like I worked my ass off and had  _ earned _ this warm spot, sharing a bed with her… but I knew that I had a long, dangerous road ahead of me and that I had to work just as hard to  _ keep _ what I had found for myself.   
  
I dreamed of something to do with a train filled with nightmarish circumstances, but woke up in the middle of the night to discover Momiji sprawled out across the entire rest of the futon snoring  _ very _ loudly. Just as I noticed, however, she suddenly stopped, seeming to get a little restless. I sleepily slid over to snuggle against her side, which stopped her stirring right away as her hand came up and landed on my face in what I think was an attempted pat of my head. She started snoring again barely a moment later, and it took me a while to get back to sleep since she was loud and rather hot, roasting me alive. Sleep came and went as a fickle beast for the rest of the night, and morning approached unbidden.   
  
So passed my first night together with Momiji.

 

##  = = Dawn of the Second Day = =

 

The first thing I woke up to in the morning was the sensation of something soft and fluffy twitching under my nose every time I breathed. The next thing was the sound of Momiji giving a quiet giggle as she stirred upon my chest. She held me warmly, and  _ felt _ like she was content. She must have been awake, because she wasn’t snoring, and I could hear the light flap of her tail against the futon. The comforter had been kicked aside sometime during the night because of the heat our bodies produced. I felt her adjust slightly, and then the dull glow of the lantern flickered into effect, restoring sight to my human eyes and showing me the beautiful woman that was getting herself comfortable upon me once again after lighting the lantern.

 

**“Good morning, lovely~”** I said softly and brought my hand to brush the hair aside on her forehead. I felt her course with merriment, as though someone set her very aura alight with a blazing happiness. Her tail flapped harder and she clung to me more firmly, then pressed her cheek into my palm, raising her face to peer at me with loving eyes.

 

**“Hmm~ Good morning~!”** she beamed. I gently brushed her skin with my thumb and her eyes closed as she relaxed.

 

**“Did you sleep well? I hope I wasn’t too much of a nuisance…”** I said and embraced her tightly. She nestled into me and shook her head.

 

**“You were fine, really. In fact, I’m certain that I’ve never slept better~!”** she said warmly but quietly.  **“I don’t want to get out of bed, it was such a restful night.”**

 

**“I’m not opposed to staying in bed with you forever, but if we do we won’t get anything done, y’know?”** I said, continuing to hold her close and gently stroking her hair while we snuggled on her futon. She sighed.

 

**“Well, let’s at least just stay here for a bit longer, I feel calm and relaxed.”** she lamented.

 

**“Of course, love~”** I said quietly, giving her forehead a soft kiss. She hummed with merriment and I felt her gleeful warmth soak into me as though she were the sun. She lay there silently for a very long while, and we just basked in one another’s gentleness until she spoke once again, very softly.

 

**“I had a dream about yesterday - it just kept replaying over and over in my head, and it was lovely each and every time…”** she said.   
  
**“Was it really that good of a day for you?”**   
  
**“It was. I remember going to bed thinking that I was going to wake up and you’d be gone, like none of this ever happened in the first place…”** she raised her head and adjusted herself so that she actually lay on top of me and could rest her chin on her arms, crossed upon my chest.  **“...and then somewhere in the middle of the night, I had woke up just a little bit, wondering if you were already gone - but almost right away I felt you sleeping nearby. And then you moved to come hold me… I’ve never felt put at ease like that before, and I think I fell right back asleep as soon as you were there, because I don’t remember anything else. I was just so relieved that I couldn’t stay awake another second.”** she said. I smiled and raised my hand to brush her hair aside again.   
  
**“Well, I’m still here, just for you~”** I said. She blushed brightly and buried her face into her arms as her tail swayed from side to side.  **“I also remember waking up in the middle of the night to find that you had ended up rolling somewhere else in bed, so I had to chase after you a bit. Now I understand why you have such a big futon!”**   
  
**“Hee…”** she giggled in a way that seemed a little more girly than I had come to expect from her.  **“I learned a long time ago that I’m a very mobile sleeper, so I tried to get the biggest futon I could convince someone to make for me. I still manage to roll out of it a lot.”**   
  
**“I’ll just have to hold on tight and go along for the ride, then~”** I said playfully and suddenly embraced her somewhat tightly.  **“And if I lose you in the middle of the night, I’ll just find my way back to you!”** I kissed her nose. She slid forward and gently kissed my lips, and I kissed her back.   
  
**“You’ve made this tired patrolwoman feel very loved, Kit.”** she very quietly murmured after our lips parted.   
  
**“Well I sure hope so, because I definitely love you.”** I whispered.   
  
**“And I love you too~”** she whispered right back.  **“I thought about it all night, over a dream that felt like months~”**   
  
**“Did--”** I started to say, but was suddenly interrupted by a very loud banging noise from what I assumed was the door. Momiji jumped with a fright and stared at me like it was my fault for a second, then scrambled to stand up and gather her robe about herself lest she fall out of it any more than she was about to. She looked supremely embarrassed, but wordlessly shuffled out, closing the bedroom door behind her.   
  
**“I’m coming to the door, give me a moment!”** I heard her call from the next room over, followed shortly by the sound of her tripping over the table and cursing. A few moments of silence later, and Momiji called for me.  **“Kiiit! Shameimaru-san has arrived for your… interview.”** she said loudly. I sighed and collected my glasses, sliding them upon my face with one hand as I grabbed the lantern with the other. I stood from the futon and took my time slowly navigating my way through the house and to the entry. As I got to the door and I got a rather large breath of extremely fresh air, I was suddenly reminded of the odor in the house - somehow I had also managed to tune it out, and now I no longer wondered how Momiji forgot about it. I looked up to the entrance and suddenly caught an eyeful of Momiji’s bare inner thigh as she was now higher than eye level.   
  
**“Wah! S…’scuse me, love.”** I exclaimed by reflex and redirected my attention shyly. The bird responded instead, her face poking around from Momiji’s side to look down at me from the riverbank.   
  
**“I knew it! You two** **_did_ ** **make it official last night, didn’t you!?”** she said and directed her gaze pointedly at Momiji before leaning close to her and whispering something I couldn’t hear. Suddenly Momiji shouted and took a swing at Aya, who backstepped out of the way.   
  
**“We didn’t get around to that because of your meddling! Insufferable goose!”** Momiji fired, guns already ablaze, though her face was a brilliant red.   
  
**“Oohoho, so you definitely** **_were_ ** **gonna get busy last night~”** Aya cajoled again. I felt my own face flush, and Momiji started gearing up for a proper fight.   
  
**“If you don’t stop with the bothersome comments and get this interview over with so Kit and I can get around to cleaning our home today…”** she started.   
  
**“You’ll** **_what_ ** **?”** Aya pressed.   
  
**“Settle it with danmaku, that’s what. I’ve some new cards I’ve been working on and reserving for just the occasion.”**   
  
**“Fine, fine, interview it is. I’ve no interest in humoring whatever cards you’ve worked** **_so_ ** **hard on.”** Aya relented mockingly, raising her hands in yield.  **“Stuffy little dog, can’t even let an old crow have her fun. I’ll bet you 300 mon you won’t last two weeks before you have him stuffing you like a rabbit in heat, though.”** I slapped my palm to my face in embarrassment and Momiji’s voice raised in straight fury.   
  
**“You had better set that 300 mon aside for me then because I’ll show you two weeks!”** she shouted. I groaned aloud and spoke quietly in a way that only Momiji could hear.   
  
**“Momiji…! She just played you for a fool… now our plans for--”** I started, then Momiji jerked stiffly and suddenly spun around, jumped back down into the foyer, then pulled me into a huddle, looking almost like she was about to cry, her ears lowered and her tail tucked tightly to her side.   
  
**“I’m sorry!! I wasn’t thinking, but please just go along with it…”** she whispered desperately.  **“We kinda need that money** **_way_ ** **more than we need…** **_that_ ** **… you know… I’m broke, and you haven’t had money in the first place!”**   
  
**“I know, I’m not against it, but it’s like… she wins no matter what we do now. Procreation or not, we’re both playing right into her hand for this one!”** I retorted. Momiji just gave me a pleading look, so I sighed and relented.  **“Well… if we’re going to do that, we may as well use it to our advantage anyhow. Going straight to town on the first day would have been too soon anyway, so I guess this is actually saving our long-term relationship. And we’re getting paid to do it, so yeah.”** I said. Her confidence was restored, so she stepped forward and confronted Aya.   
  
**“We’re taking that bet!”** Momiji yelled up at Aya, whom was looking down at the two of us and our little team meeting with a highly amused expression.   
  
**“Yeah yeah, 300 mon. If you manage two weeks, it’s yours - and don’t think I won’t know if you slip up - foreplay counts!”** Aya declared, like some sort of lawmaker. I just groaned again.   
  
**“Woohoo for romantic interference… but sure, we’ll bite. Expect to pay up after two weeks. I’m not awake enough to be pissed off, so let’s just get this interview underway, please.”** I grumbled, lightly resting my chin between Momiji’s ears. Neither Aya nor Momiji seemed to expect my response, and it produced an awkward silence. Momiji spoke up first.   
  
**“A-and I’ll be accompanying him, like he asked yesterday.”** she said. Aya just looked between the two of us for a very long while before speaking.

 

**“Hm. I still disapprove of the current situation, but I suppose I can’t object to the notion of you still having a chance, even if it** **_is_ ** **the chance of a snowball in hell.”** she said, and huffed in displeasure at the both of us.  **“At any rate, business hat on. Are you two lovebirds gonna invite me in for this interview, or are you gonna make me stand on the riverbank?”** Considering that it was Momiji’s home, I gently palmed her side to say it was up to her. She remained quiet long enough for Aya to get impatient and pull out her notebook before speaking.

 

**“Come in, then. We haven’t cleaned yet, and I have no tea for you, but I know you’re not one to care about that.”** she said, using her left hand to pat mine and urge me back inside, to which I obliged. I returned to the room with the low table. Momiji followed closely behind me, and I heard Aya invite herself in.

 

**“Don’t mind if I do.”** said the crow as she stepped down into the burrow and followed Momiji. The lantern was set upon the table as I sat down in a way that allowed me to face the entrance, and Momiji sat herself right next to me, facing across the table to where Aya was meant to sit. The table was still full of stuff, so Momiji set about clearing it off by literally shoving everything off the side and onto the tatami.

 

**“Don’t worry, Kit… I’ll make sure she doesn’t try to pull a fast one.”** Momiji whispered to me, denying me the opportunity to think or say anything about her ‘table cleaning’ method. I replied to her sentiment under my breath.

 

**“Much appreciated, love. Though if she’s gonna pull a fast one, I think you and I both know there’s nothing either of us can do to stop her… so if she does, lemme just tell you now that I love you, and I hope I’ll see you again very soon, okay~?”** I said very quietly so that only she could hear, then smiled. She beamed and leaned against me with her tail flapping heartily from side to side behind the two of us, as Aya seated herself across the table and gave us a mocking look.

 

**“Aww, you two are just…”** she said, her tone laden with sarcasm sharp enough to cut steel, but then she paused for a moment and unexpectedly - even to her - dropped the sarcasm, looking at us strangely.  **“... Kinda cute, actually.”** I turned red from the somewhat serious compliment, and I felt a rush of heat from Momiji as her tail stopped, but she kept her position, tucked against my side. Aya seemed surprised and embarrassed by her own compliment, so she adjusted herself to save face, and cleared her throat.  **“Anyway… Kit, are you prepared?”** she asked. I didn’t know I needed to do any preparing, so I just assumed I was ready.

 

**“Yes ma’am.”** I replied. I hoped to keep my responses short and to the point. Preferably yes or no queries, with any luck. Aya looked at Momiji.

 

**“How about you, Momiji?”** she asked.

 

**“Huh? What of me?”** Momiji asked, once again not expecting to be addressed by Aya.

 

**“Don’t be a dolt, Inubashiri. You’ve volunteered to be part of this interview. Are you ready?”** Aya asked sternly.

 

**“Oh, right… Uh… yes?”** she said hesitantly, then affirmed herself.  **“I’m prepared.”**

 

**“Good.”** Aya said, directing her attention to me. Her pen spun from the binding of her notebook and settled into her grip as she turned a few pages aside and prepared to write.  **“Kit, is it true that you’re from the outside world?”**

 

**“Yes ma’am.”**

 

**“Could you tell me where?”**

 

**“I’m afraid not. For safety reasons, I wish for that information to remain private.”** i said, already having to go on the defensive. Aya raised her eyes from her notebook and grinned, giving me a look that said she was taking this as a challenge.

 

**“Fair enough. Don’t want any scary youkai coming after you out there, huh?”** Aya said, somewhat maliciously. Momiji stirred and pressed herself against me as if to tell Aya that I belonged to her alone, and that she wouldn’t stand for ill motives.

 

**“That, and I’m also writing my own record of these events, but that is information I don’t wish to supply my readers.”** I said plainly, trying to keep things moving. Aya’s expression shifted from one of competitiveness to one of interest, however - any trace of malice had been replaced by curiosity.

 

**“So you’re also a writer, then?”**

 

**“Yes ma’am. Fiction and collaborative writing is my forte’, but with my visits here to Gensokyo, you could say I’m starting to poke into a combination of autobiography and journalism.”** I said calmly. Aya chuckled, and her disposition became noticeably more friendly.

 

**“I can appreciate that on a personal level, which isn’t something I can say for many humans. Do you have a reader base, or is it a handful of peers?”**

 

**“Mmm…”** i found myself getting caught up in her pacing, but it wasn’t anything bad so far.  **“Surely nothing as broad as the Bunbunmaru Shinbun, but there are a few folks who seem to enjoy what I write. Peer readers may be most accurate, but there are some outside of my personal circle.”**

 

**“When it comes to production, are you part of a group, or do you self-publish?”**

 

**“While it’s not quite what you’d think, I guess you could say that I self-publish in a sense.”**

 

**“Mm-mm.”** she mused as she wrote a bit, then looked up again.  **“What sort of fiction do you tend to write?”**

 

**“Fantasy, mostly. I also apply a lot of sci-fi elements, but overall I tend to gravitate toward adventure tales.”** I said.

 

**“And for self publishing… you seem to indicate that your publishing methods are unusual… what’s different about how you publish, then?”**

 

**“Well, I don’t release books directly, or have an editor or anything like that - I publish my scripts directly to my readers using an electonic communication network.”** I explained loosely. Aya’s eyes lit up.

 

**“I’ve heard a few rumours of something like that, is this network called ‘internet’?”** she asked.

 

**“Yep. It’s a worldwide repository of information that anyone can access, contribute to, create upon, or communicate over. It has expanded to have a lot more utilitarian and entertainment purposes over the last few decades, but the core purposes are still the same. Perhaps more relevant to your personal interests, it has become the primary platform for journalists to present their articles for consumption by the general public. I have personal reasons for wishing to connect whilst in Gensokyo, and certainly have the knowledge and skill to aid in facilitating the hardware end of a network installation here, but I am inclined to believe it in Gensokyo’s best interests to remain disconnected from the outside world internet. Having a local network probably wouldn’t hurt, but powering it may be complicated.”** I said. Aya flipped a few pages into her notebook and scribbled something hastily.

 

**“Is this common knowledge in the outside world?”** she asked after returning to her previous page.

 

**“No ma’am. Information technologies are still rather new and somewhat outside of the full understanding of the average adult. It was a hobby of mine and one I am above average in, even to the point that I very regularly handle usage queries and even system repairs. It is a job that I should be paid very well to be doing, but I volunteer it of my own will as a hobby. For the average person, however, it is generally little more than a social communications hub and news source.”** I detailed. 

 

**“I see, I see.”** she mused and wrote in her notebook for a moment. When she raised her head again, she looked to the wolf nestled against my side protectively, with a pointed stare no less.  **“Momiji, now that you have had time to be around Kit like you said you wanted, what are you going to do about this situation?”** Aya queried. Momiji was prepared this time, and for some reason I was a little proud. She sat up to reply.

 

**“Maintain it, for now. He has been very pleasant company, and from my perspective, he hasn’t done anything wrong. I will be keeping him at my side until and unless he gives me reason otherwise.”** Momiji said. Without missing a beat, I looked straight to her and with a deadpan serious expression…   
  
**“Momiji. I need to utilize the facilities.”** I said, and she looked at me, opening her mouth clearly to respond seriously, but I grin and Aya laughs briefly, then Momiji suddenly clams up, giving both Aya and I one heck of a remarkably confused expression. I can only descend into laughter myself.   
  
**“Wha.. what’s so funny?”** she asked, looking between the two of us.   
  
**“Momiji, honey, he’s pulling your leg.”** Aya pointed out.   
  
**“E-eh?? But I don’t feel--”** Momiji said and directed her head to look at her legs, then the joke suddenly dawns on her and she gives me an accusatory glare before hitting my shoulder. It hurt, but I could only giggle more and quickly embrace her from the side.   
  
**“I was just checking to see if you were really intending to accompany me** **_everywhere_ ** **I went, that’s all.”** I said.   
  
**“N-no! I’m not following you for that!”** She said, sitting up straight with a disgusted look on her face. “You know what I meant!”   
  
**“Well I would certainly hope you’re not planning on following me to the loo, but I was just checking and pointing that out, really.”** I said simply, and looked back to Aya in a way that meant I wanted the interview to continue. Momiji sighed broadly and straightened her skirt upon her thighs as she returned her attention to Aya as well.   
  
**“Shall we resume, then?”** Aya asked of us both, and we nodded.  **“Alright. Momiji, I know you’re planning to raise Kit to divinity, but can you elaborate on how you reached this decision?”** she asked. Momiji straightened a bit and thought about the question for a few moments, so Aya patiently waited for the wolf to collect her thoughts, and promptly started writing when Momiji started speaking.   
  
**“Well, to be fair, I didn’t put much thought into it at the time, since it was a spur-of-the-moment suggestion, but considering the possibility that he may very well be the mystery blacksmith Onozuka-san was so enthusiastic about last year…”** she said, and trailed off as she contemplated a bit further, then looked at me. I didn’t know where she was going with her line of thought, so I shrugged at her, and she continued.  **“If he’s the blacksmith that forged Onozuka-san’s new scythe, it could be beneficial to Gensokyo if we pursue information on making him our local blacksmith deity. I know you’ve seen the scythe firsthand - you wrote an article about it, even.”** she finished. I had been looking at Momiji while she spoke, but I suddenly looked to Aya before she could finish writing and ask another question.   
  
**“U-um… Shameimaru-san, if it’s not too much trouble, may I see that article sometime?”** I asked. Aya silently continued writing, then looked up at me when she was finished.   
  
**“Eh? Sure, if you pay for a copy of that issue, I suppose.”** She said, and looked back at her notebook to write a bit more.   
  
**“How much is it for a legacy issue of the Bunbunmaru?”** I inquired further.   
  
**“Current issue is free for those who live beyond the humans’ village, but, you’re asking about an old issue, right?”** Aya said, and tapped her pen to her chin as her eyes looked up at the ceiling in consideration of my question. When she seemingly reached a decision, she looked at me and pointed her pen.  **“Ten mon? I guess? I don’t** **_really_ ** **care whether you do or don’t pay for it, but I’d appreciate if you do, so if you really want to pay for it, ten mon sounds fair to me.”** she said, and shrugged.   
  
**“Sure, that sounds fine to me.”** I once again contemplated the conversion rates I had pieced together after my previous visit and counted on my hands.  **“That’s… about two dollars and ten cents where I’m from, which is about five times the price of a current issue of most newspapers, so considering that it’s a legacy issue from last year… yeah.”** I said, and looked up.  **“Ten mon sounds fair to me.”**   
  
**“Ten mon it is, then. However, if you’re going to do that, please buy it with your own money, not Momiji’s. Consider it motivation to contribute meaningfully to your stay here in Gensokyo - do honest work, earn a bit of mon, and** **_buy_ ** **the issue from me to show that you take things here seriously.”** Aya said, leaning over the table to stare pointedly at me. Then she blinked, realizing something.  **“Wait a minute… did you just convert mon into an outside world currency??”**   
  
**“Huh? Well, it’s a rough estimate based on the assumption that Gensokyo Mon is founded in the Tokugawa coinage system, and doesn’t account for inflation or deflation, but yes. I could certainly have put more research into finding a more exact conversion rate, but it’s really difficult when I don’t know the precise value of the base coin here in Gensokyo.”** I said.   
  
**“That’s remarkable information just by itself! Can you tell me your estimates, please?”** she asked excitedly and started writing again.   
  
**“Sure. My current estimates suggest that one Gensokyo Mon is approximately equivalent to 25 Japanese Yen, give-or-take a fraction of a Yen. The only other currency I have applied this conversion to is that of my home country, where one Gensokyo Mon is approximately equivalent to 0.21 United States Dollars, give-or-take a fraction of a cent - one one-hundredth of a dollar. Please don’t take these as** **_confirmed_ ** **conversion rates, as they are only my personal loose estimates, however. I would need to know the approximate value of Mon as it is here in Gensokyo before I can refine that estimate further.”** I explained, and provided a disclaimer. Aya was very absorbed in her writing for a few moments, so I used the break in questioning to lean over and lightly kiss Momiji’s temple - she was slightly surprised, but her tail started to sway behind us both and she leaned against me with a broad smile, so I hooked an arm around her. Aya suddenly looked at me again, and fired off another question.   
  
**“How did you calculate your estimates?”** she asked, very interested. She didn’t even spare a thought for my affections to Momiji.   
  
**“Uh… well, I actually based my estimates around a few bits of information, starting with the coins that Onozuka-san uses in her non-spells and similar. Considering that the shape of the coin from that particular instance was most closely resembling the Mon from the Tokugawa coinage system, which had been retired very briefly before the sealing of Gensokyo in favour of the Yen, and how the only mint and printing facility for the Yen was located in Osaka at the time... I made a bit of an assumption that would suggest Gensokyo had reverted to a familiar currency system that could be more locally managed. That is, the one based on the Tokugawa coinage. I don’t know Gensokyo’s actual denominations, but if the Gensokyo Mon is the approximately the same as it had been in the Tokugawa system - that is, one ryou or kouban is about 4,000 mon, and 4,000 mon is about one koku of rice, then these estimates should be somewhat serviceable. Considering I lack a lot of information at the moment, however, I cannot swear by these estimates. For me to know more, I would need to ask some questions of my own.”** I detailed. Aya once again pored studiously into her notebook, and flipped a page to write some more. Momiji elbowed me very lightly to get my attention.   
  
**“What would you need to ask? Maybe I have a few answers for you.”** she offered.   
  
**“Well, as a start, is it true that one kouban is 4,000 mon?”** I asked.   
  
**“Yes.”** Momiji replied. I looked at Aya, who was still writing, then back to Momiji.   
  
**“And does 4,000 mon allow one to purchase a full koku of rice?”**   
  
**“It does, yes.”**   
  
**“Does one koku equal an amount of rice that can feed a single person if they ate nothing but rice for a full year?”**   
  
**“It… can, I suppose. I imagine that would depend on portioning, but I think it’s definitely possible if someone is sticking to healthy portion sizes.”** Momiji tilted her head a bit.  **“Having that much mon at once sounds very extravagant to me - I could certainly use 4,000 mon to get a koku of rice, and if I’m being very thrifty and haggle with the right storekeeps, I could definitely get much more than that. The value depends mostly on who you talk to and how you present yourself. If people like you, the money is worth more in your hands, and if they don’t like you, it’s worth less. That’s in addition to the fluctuations in the base value of the coin itself from mint to mint. I don’t know that much about money myself - I’m a very poor woman, still in a fair amount of debt for my futon, rochin, and tinbe - but I’ve been around enough to know a little.”** she said, and gave me a very uncertain smile, clearly worried about some of what she had told me being a possible turn-off, such as the mention of debts. I smiled back and brought my nose to hers to assure her that I didn’t mind the financial situation.    
  
**“Thank you, love, that confirms some of my research well enough.”** I said calmly.  **“And don’t worry, being poor or having a debt doesn’t make me think less of you, not even a little! It makes me want to stick with you more, even!”** She beamed and rubbed her nose against mine before pressing our foreheads together. She wriggled happily for a moment, but the moment was cut short by Aya, whom had finished writing.   
  
**“Alright you two, stop being adorable while I’m trying to interview you.”** Aya said sharply. Momiji and I both separated from embarrassment and sat up straight. While trying to quell the heat from my face, she asked her next question.  **“Kit, what is your opinion on there being a formalized policy for exchanging outside world currencies to mon?”**   
  
**“Eh… I would need to know more about the overall politics and the economy of Gensokyo, but from what little I currently know, I don’t think it would be entirely worthwhile. I mean, it could certainly be helpful to have a written policy that the merchants are aware of, sure, but I don’t think an exchange shop or kiosk would do much good. Especially when outsiders aren’t exactly welcomed in the human village, from my perspective. Granted, I may have shot** **_my_ ** **welcome there in the foot due to my own ignorance, but they seem perhaps unusually wary of outsiders to begin with. If an outsider doesn’t have any chance to exchange his currency in the first place, the policy is useless.”** I said, perhaps feeling a little salty over my situation in regards to the village. Aya began writing again, so I continued my line of thought.  **“Well, I guess it would certainly prevent Gensokyo merchants from getting screwed over by outsiders claiming their currency to be worth more than it truly is, but then… As far as I’m aware, outsiders aren’t really supposed to just find their way into Gensokyo - those that usually end up here seem to be brought here as ‘supply’, if I understand properly. It would be weird for there to be provisions to accommodate something that generally shouldn’t come to be in the first place except as a mistake or ‘the one that got away’, so to speak.”** I concluded. Aya’s pen stopped, mid-stroke, as she looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite grasp.   
  
**“Hmm… you’re already** **_way_ ** **more educated about it than any other human here. I’m impressed. And unless I’m mistaken, you actually sound** **_okay_ ** **with these circumstances?”** She asked.   
  
**“Well, sure. Gensokyo is a somewhat delicate ecosystem and that’s just part of what keeps this place ticking. Youkai eat humans, humans exterminate youkai - it’s as the Yama says. Well, once again, if I understand properly. I think it would be selfish and hypocritical of me to impose the idea of youkai adhering to human morals, and vice versa. I mean, if a youkai** **_wants_ ** **to live in harmony with humans, that’s their decision - they’re free to work toward that goal, I suppose. Likewise for a human who wants to harmonize with youkai, I would like to believe with no small amount of naivete’. Both cases are surely an uphill battle, and they’ll never hear the end of it from miss Shiki I’m sure, but it’s still their decision to make.”** I said. I looked at Momiji and continued.  **“If a youkai subsists on the flesh of humans, I do not feel personally wronged, and I feel no desire to judge them poorly, for that is how a youkai might live.”** I returned my gaze to Aya.  **“However, if a youkai commits terrible acts out of malice or some other untoward drive, I would certainly think ill of them.”** I finished. Aya’s expression softened into something else I couldn’t quite understand.   
  
**“You hold no grudge against youkai?”** She asked, clearly an aside from the interview itself.   
  
**“No, not really. I mean, it depends on the circumstances, but I have no hard feelings against youkai doing what they** **_need_ ** **to do in order to live. I would probably react as a normal human if a loved one were to be wounded or killed by someone - be they human or youkai - and provided the opportunity I would probably do what I’m supposed to as a human and try to handle the offending youkai or human, but otherwise I currently have no reason to bear any ill wishes against youkai or humans as a whole - least of all for the actions of a hypothetical** **_individual_ ** **youkai or human. I mean, for example… you killed me, but do I look upset or bothered to you? If there’s anything about that which has me upset at all, it’s that I wasn’t able to properly give Momiji the things I had intended to give her.”** I said, and then smiled brightly.  **“Actually, I’d rather like to** **_thank_ ** **you for that, because without that, things would surely not have turned out the way they have, and I am deeply grateful to have been allowed this opportunity.”** I finished, and gently took Momiji’s hand, lacing her fingers with mine and raising it to show Aya. Momiji looked at me, and even from the corner of my eye I could see that her face was on fire. Aya stared at the spot where our hands met, then looked between Momiji and I’s faces. After a moment, she sighed and tapped the back of her pen to her chin, closing her eyes.   
  
**“I more or less knew what I was looking at, but I didn’t think it were really that deep.”** She opened her eyes again, this time with a stern, serious light. She put both hands on the table and leaned forward.  **“Kit, do you** **_truly_ ** **love and admire Momiji?”** she asked. I opened my mouth to respond right away, but there was something telling in Aya’s stare that was anticipating that in a bad way, and it gave me pause, so I closed my mouth and I considered the question much more intently. While I did so, I looked over at Momiji, and she returned a hopeful gaze. I was reminded of the conversations she and I had last night, and barely a short while ago. Sure, there was a lot more I wished to know about her, but I had admired her for years before I even came here. I felt a little strange about that, but here she is, sitting beside me. In my eyes, she was perfect, and in the places I might discover her flaws, they would become facets of her perfection to me. I could not predict the future, but right now…   
  
**“Yes.”** I said, looking Aya straight in the eyes.  **“I have a lot to learn about her, but I’m deciding that I want to devote myself to tackling life together with her.”** I finished. Aya turned red, and Momiji gripped my hand tightly before speaking as well.   
  
**“I-it’s… more than a little rushed, but all things considered, I’m okay with this, a-and… I feel the same… about going forward together with Kit…”** she quietly mumbled to Aya, then leaned over and buried her face into my back from her embarrassment. I gently squeezed her hand, and I felt her breath escape upon my back in a heavy sigh. Aya cleared her throat and deeply busied herself with writing in her notebook. After several moments more, Momiji had calmed down and straightened again, then Aya closed her notebook and set it aside on the table with the pen.   
  
**“Kit.”** Aya addressed, her tone and expression still serious.   
  
**“Yes?”** I replied, giving her my attention. Momiji and I had been fiddling with our hands, but we stopped when Aya spoke.

 

**“I told you yesterday that I would turn a blind eye to matters if you assured me an interview, but before I resume the interview itself, I need to make sure of several things.”** she said.   
  
**“Okay, and those things would be?”** I asked.   
  
**“You already know that your relationship with Momiji will be an uphill battle for both of you, which saves me a long lecture, but for posterity’s sake…”** she paused, then sighed as if she didn’t really feel like going through with the rest of the conversation, but she resumed nonetheless.  **“You are courting one of Lord Tenma’s patrol guard, and perhaps one of the most fiercely loyal and hardworking of her wing. If you are to be her partner, you will be expected to be her** **_match_ ** **, her** **_equal_ ** **, and I can tell you right now that you will sorely disappoint. Considering the odd, extenuating circumstances, you might be afforded the time and means to** **_catch up_ ** **, but again, you have a long road ahead of you. For someone in her position, having a partner whom is a burden and a liability on her capacity to function as a patrolwoman is nothing short of dishonour.”** she said sternly. I felt Momiji stiffen beside me and bridle with anger as a response welled up within her, but I gently squeezed her hand just as Aya continued, putting her hand upon her notebook.  **“You are also** **_effectively_ ** **Momiji’s personal captive, and she has just gone on record as saying that you are obligated to go anywhere she goes, and** **_she_ ** **will go anywhere** **_you_ ** **go. She is your** **_warden_ ** **, and you are obligated to obey her if she commands you with that authority - that is also your saving grace, because that means that you are protected from all other tengu save Lord Tenma herself. However, this also puts you in** **_danger_ ** **, because any and all tengu are required to follow orders from Lord Tenma, such as being sent into combat, contending with intruders, protecting the mountain and the gods who reside upon it… and it often means that** **_humans_ ** **are the opposition.”** she outlined, and looked at me with an expression that read as though she were expecting me to be put off by this information. Momiji seemed to deflate and suddenly look apologetic beside me, and I realized that she hadn’t thought of this any more than she had thought of the odour permeating her home. I honestly wasn’t all that bothered by this information, as it struck me as common sense for the circumstances, so I waited for her to continue - which she did.  **“Knowing that you may be obligated to wage combat against your own kind, and do so on a level that is on par with a tengu, are you still committed to pursuing a relationship with Momiji? You are still a human, but this decision is not one that you can reverse, Kit. If you truly decide to pursue Momiji, you will not be able to return to life as a human in Gensokyo.”** she said, and her posture shifted in a way that implied she was done with her statements. I already knew my answer, but I paused to at least give myself the opportunity to consider it. Momiji, however, tugged to pull her hand free from mine, and I looked at her as a result, seeing an expression that was even more deeply apologetic than it had been a moment ago. She opened her mouth to say something, and I felt that I knew what sort of thing she was going to say, so I quickly looked at Aya and gave her my answer before Momiji could interject with a refusal.    
  
**“Shameimaru-san, this is a decision of the sort that I have already contemplated for years - over a decade, even.”** I said, and looked back to Momiji, holding her hand tightly with both of mine.  **“I’m** **_very_ ** **glad that it’s Momiji, though to be very honest…”** I looked back to Aya, and resumed.  **“...I do not fit in very well at all amongst humans, and have already been shunned by the only human community I know of in Gensokyo - not to mention that you killed me in front of the only human here who cared enough to treat me fairly. I’m** **_already_ ** **unable to return to life as a human while I’m here. It wouldn’t have much mattered who captured me after that - if they were more accepting of me than my own kind has been, I would devote myself to them. If they decided to use me as sustenance, that would have been the end of it for me. However, Momiji was the one I wished for the most, and as fortune would have it, she has been the one to treat me with kindness and understanding, she has been the one to accept me thus far, and she has been the one I have fallen for, so for as long as she allows, I would very much wish to work at being a worthy partner for Momiji. I’ll do what I can to secure that future for both of us. I wish to support the life she wants to live in whatever ways I can muster.”** I said with sincerity. I looked over at Momiji, who looked both mad and on the verge of tears, and bowed my head to her.  **“I’m sorry that I’m not yet up to the standard expected of a tengu’s relationship partner, but if you’ll allow me, I would like to work toward that goal.”** I said. Momiji suddenly hit me with a force that felt almost like a cannonball to the bicep.  **“Ouch! What was that for??”** Rather than respond, she somewhat roughly pulled me into a crushing embrace.  **“M… Momiji? Are you alright?”**

 

**“I’m… fine… but are you really okay with this?”** she asked, very quietly. I nodded against her collarbone.   
  
**“Of course I am. I understand that it’s not going to be easy, but I want to give it my best anyhow. My entire time with you so far has literally been something I could only dream of! That may be poor wording for the circumstances, but I wouldn’t turn down this chance even if the end result is that it kills me.”** I said, but Momiji crushed me harder and I felt my spine pop in several places, much to my relief. Momiji’s grip immediately loosened.   
  
**“I’m sorry! Are you--”** she started to apologize, but I started to laugh and she paused.   
  
**“I’m fine, truly - sometimes I really need that, actually. That was long overdue.”** I said, and laughed a bit more. She just looked nervous.  **“At any rate, I’m still very concerned that this may turn out to be exactly that - a dream. I desperately wish for this to be real, but I’m what you could call a bit of a mild skeptic.”** I said, and looked at Aya, who wore an expression that looked like an eternal sigh of annoyance.  **“I will need to find some sort of evidence that could serve to show these events as being real even after I wake up at home - if I even go back at all.”** Aya sat up again.   
  
**“And on that note, I’m going to take the reins again.”** she said, sliding her notebook back in front of her, picking up her pen, and turning back to her previous page.  **“Kit, do you object to me including your pursuit of Momiji in my article?”**   
  
**“Well,** **_I_ ** **don’t object, but Momiji’s opinion also matters there.”** I said and looked over to catch her red eyes. Momiji decided to correct matters, however.   
  
**“It’s not a pursuit if we’ve already made the decision to go forward together.”** Momiji said, a little more strongly than I had come to expect of her when discussing the state of affairs. Aya looked up and raised her brow.   
  
**“You mean… you** **_accept_ ** **him? Like… as your partner?”** Aya asked, dubiously.

  
**“Yes.”** she said plainly. Aya straightened and looked almost offended as her pen slapped flat against her notebook, trapped under her palm.   
  
**“Momiji, the boy himself outlined that it’s a complicated situation - you should understand that better than he does! This is going to be a headache from start to finish, and heartache by the end of it unless you--!”** She suddenly stopped in mid-sentence, and her expression changed shape several times as she stared hard at Momiji. Then she sighed and seemed to unwind slightly, resuming her line of thought. **“Ahhhh, I get it now. So** **_this_ ** **is why you want to make him an arahitogami. Momiji, you better come up with a better reason than this when it comes down to it.”** Aya warned, scooping her pen back up and using it to emphasize her gesturing.   
  
**“I’m aware. I’m also aware that this may be more than a little foolish, but so far he has been nothing short of pleasant company. Once again, until and unless he proves to be an unrecoverable loss, I’m taking responsibility for him - and I currently don’t think he will disappoint, despite your initial judgement.”** Momiji said strongly. Aya opened her mouth and raised her pen pointedly to respond right away, then closed her mouth. After a brief pause, she opened it again and pointed at me with her pen, but I very subtly creased my brow at the opposition, and she shut her mouth again, staring at my face. Whatever she may have been thinking to say must have been quelled, for she sighed very deeply and lowered her pen back toward her notebook, beginning to write vigorously. I looked over at Momiji as she did so.   
  
**“Love, you don’t have to take** **_total_ ** **responsibility for me or my actions, just so you know. If I screw up and should have known better, then I’m the one who should take responsibility and receive the consequences for that. I can understand and I accept if you want to take responsibility for helping me get acclimated to living here, but you don’t have to cover my ass if you don’t want to…”** I said to her.   
  
**“Kit, it’s fine - you saying that only proves my point. If you’re serious about being my partner, you’ll grow stronger and faster simply as a matter of course. Especially since you’re already open to sparring and training with me, which will help** **_both_ ** **of us!”** she said, growing more merry as she spoke. Her tail was back to swinging behind us, and I could only smile, bumping her shoulder with my own. She was obviously looking forward to sparring with me, which made me look forward to it as well.   
  
**“Kit.”** Aya spoke, looking back up from her notebook after loudly dotting the end of her sentence. She was probably growing more and more annoyed by our affections, and intentionally swept our chatter aside by diving right back into the interview.  **“You told me before, and spoke just now as if you come and go from Gensokyo - can you tell me more about that?”**   
  
**“Not much more, I’m afraid. I don’t know how, why, or any specifics - all I know is that sometimes when I fall asleep in the outside world, I wake up here in Gensokyo, and sometimes when I go to sleep here, I wake up back in the outside world. That’s about all I know, and I even question that much right now. There have been approximately six months’ time between each of my visits here - the first time I was here, I met with Onozuka-san and forged a new scythe for her, and I was here for a week. The second time I was here, I met with Motoori-chan and she helped me prepare for a meeting with Momiji - that time, I was here for two days. This is now my third visit. I don’t know how long I will be here, but today is my second day - I may very well return home tonight, I might return a couple days from now, I might never return again… I have no idea. However, considering certain developments…”** I said, and grabbed Momiji’s hand, squeezing very gently. **“…I will be putting in time and effort into determining whether or not these visits are real or if they have been naught but a dream.”**   
  
**“I would like to earnestly assure you that this is no dream, Kit. I have my own memories and experiences that are entirely separate from your existence - things that you would have no way of knowing unless I told you. Like my childhood experiences, or my family life… things like that. I take some amount of offense to the idea of being a figment of some human’s imagination.”** Aya said, unexpectedly emotional about it.   
  
**“I can understand that, though I can’t much help but to be skeptical of these events. They are entirely too fantastical for me to simply accept without proof. If I were to tell any of my housemates at home when I wake up that I just came back from a land filled to overflowing with mythical creatures like tengu and kappa and deities, they would just laugh at me. Not that I really care much about proving anything to them - it’s more about having proof for** **_myself_ ** **, so I know how to proceed with my life in the outside world. If I am going to be in a relationship with Momiji, I refuse to participate in relations in the outside world… but if Momiji is only a dream, as much as I would hate for that to be the case, I should not allow myself to remain deluded into thinking that she’s anything** **_but_ ** **.”** I said, and gave a sigh **“However, if Gensokyo** **_is_ ** **real, I need to prepare myself for living a double life split between here and the outside world, or find a way to simply come here in full… and on the other hand, if Gensokyo is just a figment of my imagination, I need to stop deluding myself and devote my time and energy back into living properly in the outside world.”** I explained.   
  
**“I like the idea even less now - it seems extremely egotistical to me, to even think in the first place that our lives here are nothing but a byproduct of one human’s delusions.”** Aya responded.   
  
**“I’m not trying to be egotistical. I am simply explaining my perspective and approach to this situation, not trying to impose a belief. This is just the curse of being skeptical - I doubt all manner of things unless I can secure supporting evidence. I** **_want_ ** **to believe that you and Momiji are real - I just have no proof.”**   
  
**“Why do you even need proof? Can you prove that** **_you’re_ ** **real?”** Aya practically spat.   
  
**“Fair point, but I’ve also never claimed to be real in the first place.** **_I_ ** **don’t even know if I’m real. But that’s an existential crisis for later - the current one is enough of a handful for now.”** I retorted calmly.   
  
**“Fine, so what would serve as proof since you need it so badly?”** Aya said, sitting back down upon the cushion, though I hadn’t noticed her sit up from it in the first place. I hadn’t actually had time to consider a legitimate response to that particular dilemma yet, so I paused to think about it. Momiji sighed beside me.   
  
**“This conversation makes my head spin… all this about being real and not real - what are you even talking about?”** Momiji asked.   
  
**“He thinks we’re nothing but a dream because he doesn’t have proof that we’re not.”** Aya responded for me, and kick-started what I wanted to say for my actual response to her question.   
  
**“That’s close, but not** **_exactly_ ** **true. More accurately, the problem is that I acknowledge the** **_possibility_ ** **of this being nothing more than a dream, and I** **_want_ ** **proof that it isn’t. That is not going to be easy to ‘prove’ by any means, but it’s certainly not impossible. For an example, the most obvious thing that would serve as proof… is if Momiji came to my home in the outside world, and I were able to introduce her to my housemates or family. I don’t know how that would be** **_possible_ ** **, though - I don’t even know how** **_I’m_ ** **coming here,** **_if_ ** **I’m coming here at all, let alone how I’m going back or how to bring someone** **_else_ ** **with me to or from. I’ve already come to the conclusion that I suddenly have a lot of work to do just to sort out my sudden moral complications.”** I said, with some amount of lamentation in my tone. Momiji’s brows relaxed slightly, giving the appearance that she had understood what I said, but then they furrowed again and she looked down, probably thinking about something or other.   
  
**“As a reporter, I have a lot of contacts. I can arrange for someone to meet with you in the outside world if I know where to point them.”** Aya said.   
  
**“You’ve already killed me once, so I’ll not be telling you that information purely as an act of self-preservation. In fact, I will be hard-pressed to tell** **_anyone_ ** **whom has the ease of capability in that regard - to fulfill that wish of meeting someone from here while in the outside world is a pipe dream at the moment. The people with that kind of power tend very heavily toward the sort that I** **_really_ ** **do not want to fraternize with just yet, and for as much as I’m sick of living, I don’t exactly fancy the idea of suicide… assisted or otherwise. Sorry, you’re not getting my location out of me quite that easily.”** I said. Aya just laughed heartily.   
  
**“That’s twice now that you’ve thwarted my attempts to find out where you live. You make for a more entertaining interviewee than I thought you would.”** She said.   
  
**“Thank you kindly, though the interview doesn’t seem over - I still have plenty of time to disappoint.”** I said with a cheeky grin. Momiji sighed and I could feel her brow furrow from beside me even if I couldn’t see it.   
  
**“And you would be correct on both counts, though give me just a moment to write before my next question - I got a little carried away there.”** Aya said, and promptly put pen to paper. I shrugged and waited. Momiji tugged at my hand.   
  
**“Hmm?”** I mused, looking at her.   
  
**“What do I have to do in order for you to believe that I’m here… that I exist?”** she asked me, very quietly.   
  
**“You don’t have to do anything, love - this is just an internal problem of mine, and something I don’t yet know how to solve. If I think of anything you can do to help me, I’ll be sure to tell you, though!”** I assured her, and gave her hand a gentle squeeze as I smiled lightly to her. She smiled back, but didn’t look all that comforted by what I had said.  **“I just need to think about the situation a bit more and probably experiment with a variety of things before I’ll know what can work as suitable evidence to support the reality or non-reality of my experiences here. Remember from last evening, how I said that I proceed under the notion of everything being both real and not real? This is part of that.”**   
  
**“Ohhh… it’s uh…** **_complicated_ ** **… but I think I’m starting to get it.”** she said, and seemed to concentrate for a moment, as if trying to arrange her thoughts on the subject into something she could wrap her head around. I nodded to her.   
  
**“Mm. I made mistakes in my first two visits by not considering the consequences of my actions and operating in the idea of it being nothing more than a dream. This time I don’t want to make that mistake, so I am treating my visit this time as being equally real as my experiences in the outside world - kinda as a precautionary measure. Even if I don’t know for sure whether it is or isn’t as real, at least I’ll know that if I find out it** **_is_ ** **real at some arbitrary point in the future, I can comfortably look back on this visit and feel confident about my decisions having been ones that I wouldn’t regret at the time I made them. While I am here, I aim to behave as though it is all real. When I am in the outside world, however, I must regard my visits here with skepticism until I can obtain supporting evidence. The idea of ‘other worlds’ is not an accepted notion in the outside world, at least as anything more than a fantasy.”** I said, conversing quietly with the beautiful wolf beside me as Aya scribbled away in her notebook across the table from us.

 

**“What you said to Shameimaru-san… would you really like to meet with me in the outside world? Is it truly okay for you to introduce me to your friends and family like so…?”** she asked, somewhat timidly.  **“You’re not ashamed to be interested in a non-human this way?”**   
  
**“Of course not! Human or otherwise, you’re a lovely person, and of course I would be proud to introduce you to my friends and family. You’re my girlfriend, and I think they’d be happy to know I’ve found someone** **_I_ ** **can be happy with. I… don’t know for sure what leads you to think that I’d be ashamed for my interest in you, but I’m not from Gensokyo and I’ve not been brought up in the culture here, so from my perspective, this isn’t an issue…”** I said, somewhat bothered by the notion that I’m supposedly meant to feel ashamed for being happy. She turned a faint pink and looked down. Aya’s pen stopped and she seemed to read over the page, then seemingly satisfied, she looked up at me with a somewhat blank expression. I queried her.  **“. . . Yes?”**

 

**“Uh… so, I think I may have more than enough for an article now, but is there anything more you would like to add?”** Aya asked.

 

**“Yes, actually. Uh… I might not have been here for very long, and I know I’m not very wanted here, but I love Gensokyo and everyone in it, human or otherwise. Of course, I especially love Momiji, but by now that probably goes without saying. I want to work hard to reach a point where I can be useful to society here, and maybe gain the strength to protect it. As naive as it is, I hope to get along with as many folks as possible.”** I said. Aya scribbled in her notebook a bit more.

 

**“Well, I have to give you credit for being an** **_intelligent_ ** **human - you already seem to know and understand what you’re getting yourself into, so as naive as it may be, and despite my opinion of you… I find myself actually wishing you luck here in Gensokyo, now. I hope you are successful with that wish of yours.”** She said with a rather pleasant smile, which I returned, then looked to Momiji.  **“Any closing statements, Momiji?”**  Aya asked.

 

**“Hmm… nothing specific, I don’t think. Kit is still new to life in Gensokyo, and as strange as the circumstance is, he’ll be in my charge, so until he can fend for himself, I’ll be taking care of him.”** Momiji responded.

 

**“Hm.”** Aya said, made one final scribble, then closed her notebook.  **“That concludes the first interview, then. I would have liked to ask more questions, but you provided heavy responses to the questions I asked, so I’ll reserve other questions for a later interview. Moderation is key when you work in and from a small community like this one here in Gensokyo.”**  she said, with a rather genuine smile. Momiji gave her a very subtle, short bow, so I did the same, before sitting straight again.

 

**“It was rather fun, which I didn’t expect what with my social anxiety and all that. It was more like a conversation than an interview, so I look forward to reading the article.”** I said. Aya blinked at me with an expression bordering on surprise.

 

**“Er… thanks? I think? And please, call me Aya - as you have surely noticed by now, I’m not a stickler for the formalities. When you’ve been around as long as I have, that stuff really stops mattering to you.”** she said.

 

**“Understandable - and on that note… I don’t mind what you call me, though it seems that it makes Momiji uncomfortable when people don’t even attempt to respect someone’s wishes where that sort of thing is concerned, so may I please ask if you’d be a little more considerate of her?”** I said, being a little forward with my request on Momiji’s behalf.

 

**“Kit, I can-”** Momiji started, but she was interrupted by Aya, who smirked as she spoke.   
  
**“You’re not in a position to be making requests, I’ll have you know.”** She said with malice. Momiji responded by sitting up and leaning into the space between Aya and I. Aya waved her hand at her.  **“Could you stop that, really? If I were going to do something to him, I would have already done it by now.”**   
  
**“Well, technically-speaking, you already did - I feel that it’s the precedent which has her on edge here.”**   
  
**“Ah, riiight. Slipped my mind for a moment there.”** Aya said and sighed, scratching at her jawline.

 

**“Well at any rate, I understand what you’re saying about my current position, so I’ll be more mindful in the future, but seeing as the request has already been voiced, do you object?”** I said.   
  
**“Eh?”** Aya said as her attention redirected to me. Her eyes then looked at Momiji with a faint hint of defiance, but she frowned and looked back at me.  **“Hm. No promises. It’s not something I’m keen on…  or used to… so don’t expect any favours, but I guess it doesn’t really hurt to try since you seem to think it’s offensive. I’m not trying to be a bully about it, I just think it’s fun to get a rise out of her. Since you’re serious about it, though…”** she said, and shrugged.  **“What the heck. Why not?”** She suddenly grinned at me.  **“You’re turning out to be interesting enough to make up for the change in habit. I don’t like you, but you’re entertaining. For now.”** She said.   
  
**“Heh, I can appreciate the honesty there, and I’ll take that last statement as a compliment given the circumstances.”** I said with a return grin.   
  
**“Haha!”** Aya said and looked at Momiji with an expression that may as well have been a gesture of slapping the wolf on the back.  **“I was only getting under your skin at first about keeping him, but I’m starting to wonder if it wasn’t half-bad of an idea. Then you went and did it anyway! You two are a hoot! An adorable hoot, the both of you!”** Aya said loudly, and gathered her notebook to stand up.  **“I look forward to seeing what comes of this, regardless of my own expectations of it, but for now I should return to the office and start writing.”** She gave a polite bow to the both of us.  **“Thank you for the interview~”** She finished. Momiji and I both stood to return the bow, then Momiji spoke as we straightened again.   
  
**“I like you a lot more when you’re interviewing someone. We could get along so much better if you were like this more often.”** she said.   
  
**“I know that, but then it’s not as much fun~!”** Aya said, amused.  **“Anyway, I’m leaving now - and don’t forget… two weeks! If you slip up, you owe me 300 mon~!”** Both of us groaned. Our reaction caused the crow to laugh.  **“Haha, that tells me all I need to know. Have fun, you two~! I’ll come to collect when Kit here has been around you for a total of two weeks, then~”**   
  
**“You won’t be coming to collect anything, goose.”** Momiji growled and leaned toward Aya. I sighed and tugged the wolf back very gently by her shoulders, and surprisingly she relaxed slightly to allow me the action of pulling her closer to me, so as soon as she was close enough I rested my chin between her ears.   
  
**“See you later, Aya. Remember, you’ve agreed not to tell anyone that I exist - I’d like to retain a small amount of peace while I get accustomed to living here before the whole region knows there’s an outsider on the mountain, if you don’t mind. Have a bit of tact with the timing of your article, please.”** I mused calmly, closing my eyes in comfort borne of my contact with Momiji, though an odd noise from Aya caused me to open them again and peer at her. Aya spun on her heel and glared at me just as my eyes were opening.

  
  
**“Brazen human, telling me what to do, are you?”** Aya said once she had turned to face me, raising her hackles and an arm to point at my face as she spoke. Momiji adjusted beneath my chin as if she were moving to react defensively, but I held fast onto her, getting the sense that Aya wasn’t going to do anything even though I was pressing my luck, so she stayed put.   
  
**“Not at all, merely querying the respectable reporter Aya Shameimaru for kindness.”** I said calmly and tipped my head from side to side so that my cheeks rubbed against Momiji’s ears. Aya’s arm lowered and her brow furrowed at me, but her expression relaxed after a brief moment.   
  
**“Hmph. It will take me a week or two to write the article and get it edited before I can publish it. I’ll take a relaxed pace with it and write a bit of a longer article, so use that time to do what you’re going to do. Once the article is ready for publishing, however, it will be in the paper whether you’re ready or not.”** said the crow, displaying a rather unexpected dose of mindfulness toward me.   
  
**“Thank you for your consideration, Aya. I do look forward to the article, by the way~”** I said with a smile, still enjoying myself with Momiji’s ears. Aya opened her mouth to speak, then quickly turned around and pointed her nose to the air.   
  
**“I-I don’t need your praises and courtesy, prisoner. Good day, Inubashiri-chan.”** Aya said and moved to leave. I read through her statements and actions easily enough to see that she was putting on airs but still trying to be accommodating, so I smiled at her turned back.   
  
**“Hee. Have a good day, Aya~”** I said.   
  
**“Hmph!”** she grumbled without looking at us, then went about putting her geta to her feet and clattering her way out Momiji’s door. Aya having departed, I lowered my face into Momiji’s hair with a very deep sigh, and embraced her tightly.   
  
**“Kit..? Are you alright?”** Momiji asked, leaning her back against me.   
  
**“Yeah, I’m good. Just cooling down a bit. Thank you for joining me for that, it really means a lot.”** I said, and very lightly kissed the top of her head. She also sighed, though it felt like a very mixed-emotion sigh.   
  
**“I… can’t believe we just indirectly told the world about us…”** she said in a very timid and quiet tone.   
  
**“Ah--!”** I hadn’t really thought of it that way, and it made me extremely embarrassed. I held onto her tighter.  **“W-well, then we should do our best!”** I said positively. Momiji straightened a bit and rested her calloused palms on my forearm, nodding under my chin.   
  
**“Mm! It makes me a little nervous, but it’s also rather exciting~”** she said, filling with energy which somewhat trickled from her into me. I smiled and hid my blush in her hair, not that there was anyone I needed to hide it from.   
  
**“I’m nervous and excited too, but I also think this will be a lot of fun, and a wonderful time for us both~”** I said. Momiji wriggled in my arms, and her tail swished against my side.

 

**“Well, let’s not forget that we’ll have to work for it - a good life isn’t just going to be handed to us, we have to make it happen.”** She said, trying to make sure we remain realistic and don’t get our heads in the clouds.   
  
**“But working for it is half the fun, y’know~”** I said, keeping optimistic.  **“Work smarter, not harder, though. And the KISS rule can probably apply.”**   
  
**“K-kiss… rule?”** She said, adjusting herself to turn around a bit in my arms and look at me from the corner of her eye.   
  
**“Hee, it means lots of kisses!”** I said playfully, and gently kissed her cheek as she turned red. After giving her a tease and some affection, I conceded what it actually meant so I wasn’t misinforming her.  **“It doesn’t really - it’s an acronym, which means ‘Keep It Simple, Stupid’, as a nuanced reminder to not make things more complicated than they need to be. Following the KISS rule would be like taking the shortest route through town because it gets you from point A to point B faster - or it could also be something like… instead of a direct route, it would be like taking a roundabout route through town because it’s less crowded and introduces less variables to your route for a calmer walk. It just depends on the person and what counts as ‘simple’ to them.”** I finished.

 

**“Oh. Hee, I like the idea of that, but you’re not very good at following it, are you?”** she said, giving me a smirk as she brought out her wit.   
  
**“Huh? H-how do you mean? I think I’m a good practitioner of the KISS rule! Surely I must be the best!”** I said in playful offense.   
  
**“There’s no way~”** she said, trying not to laugh.  **“You can’t be the best if you keep breaking the rule, you know!”**   
  
**“What are you getting at? How am I not a good follower of the almighty KISS rule? Of course I like to keep things simple!”** I pressed, still fostering a playful mood by rocking her from side to side in front of me..

 

**“Silly, it’s obvious! If you were really that good at following it, would you be in this situation right now~?”** She said, playing along with my movements.   
  
**“Hmm?”** I murmured, actually attempting to consider what she may be trying to claim.   
  
**“Kit, honestly. Think about it.”** She said a little more seriously and turned around to face me properly, freeing herself from my arms as she did so.  **“You went out of your way to help Onozuka-san replace her scythe. If you were as devout to this KISS rule as you think, wouldn’t you have just passed her by and not helped her at all?”** she said, her tone being a bit firm. I decided it was time to return to levity now that I understood what she was saying.   
  
**“Ah! You’re right!”** I exclaimed, then descended into playful theatrics, collapsing to the floor in increments as I further exclaimed and gestured theatrically as though dying.  **“My whole life! It has been a lie! Oh, the shame of my ignorance!”**   
  
**“Oh stop that you silly man!”** she said with a laugh and pushed me after I had put myself outright onto the floor.  **“Though really, from my perspective as a youkai, I think it’s a wonderful thing that you’ve inconvenienced yourself as a human purely for the benefit of a youkai. It really says a lot about your character, and is a lot of the reason why I think you’re a good person.”** she said, then her expression shifted to something unusual as she looked away and spoke much quieter.  **“Albeit from a more empathetic standpoint, it makes me think that you’re a catastrophic failure as a human…”** she said, then looked back at me and her tone restored.  **“...but a good person nonetheless. I feel good about being with you, Kit.”** She concluded her praise with a dashing smile, and I blushed and sat up from the floor, looking at the backs of my hands as they rest upon my knees while I felt a rush of warmth course through my body. She could be really flattering when she wanted to be, but for some reason, my vocal filter lapsed and I started speaking without much thought.   
  
**“Honestly, I don’t think that well of myself. If I see a need and I have the knowledge and means to help, I think it’s simply a matter of course to do what I can for them, regardless of concepts like good or evil, or human and youkai. But… I appreciate that you think I’m a good person, Momiji. If it means anything to you, I think that you’re a good person too - the fact that we’re together like this is more than enough proof of that~”** I said, because I was suddenly feeling really negative about myself. Wanting to accept her praise was not easy, but I gave it effort regardless and brought myself to say something positive, restoring my vocal filter in the middle of what I had been saying. It only made me feel marginally better, but it was enough to get me to smile in return to her. This woman was already doing remarkable things for my mental wellbeing, and I was immensely thankful even though she’d have no way of knowing about it. While I was busy with internal dialogue, she spoke softly.

 

**“Well, I can think of a need around here to which your skills could be applied~”**   
  
**“Oh?”** I queried, briefly wondering if she were getting at something lewd. I didn’t have to wonder for long.   
  
**“Today is cleaning day, remember?”** She said simply. Her tone was still very slightly playful, so I got the sense that she had just played a small joke on me and intentionally left implied innuendo in her previous statement. I didn’t care, she’d filled me with energy and I was ready to tackle the day.   
  
**“Yep! Ready to start whenever you are, love~!”** I said, sitting straight. She stood tall and stretched her arms over her head for a moment, then lowered them with a relaxed swing.   
  
**“Right now is as good a time as any!”** she said, also getting fired up with a huge grin and a flex of her arms. In the process, she nearly fell out of her pyjamas, but she caught the hem as it was falling from her shoulder and quickly put it back in place just in the nick of time before she accidentally flashed me.  **“W-well, after I get dressed.”** she appended with a blush and a concerned stare. I laughed, and she adjusted her robe and re-tied her obi to keep it from happening again.   
  
**“Well of course, heh.”** I said, then felt my expression change as I realized something.  **“Hey wait a sec… do you have any spare clothes or something of the like that I could wear for different occasions like bed and working around the house? I can’t make it a habit to go about life here with only one set of clothes… what am I going to wear when this outfit needs washed?”**

 

**“Eh? Kit, you’re gigantic compared to me! Do I look like I’ll have any spare clothes for you to wear?? I may just have to loan you a blanket to wrap up in when your clothes need washed--”** She said, then stopped, dumbstruck.  **“Ah! Wait! I have your kimono!”** she exclaimed suddenly.

 

**“My kimono?”** I asked, confused. I had completely forgotten and didn’t know what she was talking about.   
  
**“The grey one you had been wearing when Aya… um…”** she said, but seemed unable to actually bring herself to finish her sentence.   
  
**“Ah! You kept that??”**   
  
**“Yes - I’m not really sure why, but it was all that was left, and it looked new, so I felt it was a shame to just leave it there. But… it’s way too big to fit anyone I know, so it’s just been shoved to the side around here somewhere.”** She said, and looked around the room as if trying to find it. Her hand raised to rub at her cheek. I stretched a bit and finally stood from the floor again, straightening my clothes as I spoke.   
  
**“Well, it** **_was_ ** **new - I had just gotten it made so I could come up here to meet you that day, and was wearing it for the first time. If you still have it, then problem solved I suppose~! I’m glad you held onto it, because now I have something to wear.”** I said and looked back up to catch her staring at me oddly, her cheeks having turned rather pink.  **“Are you alright?”** I asked, and she twitched.   
  
**“Y-yes! I’m fine!”** she said rather loudly, which caught me by surprise. She shook her head.  **“Just… a little embarrassed, that’s all. You had it made to come see me, and I… er… things turned out the way they did, you know… I wish I had known then. I would have received you much differently and tried to keep Aya from uh… you know.”** She said, much quieter, turning red as she spoke.   
  
**“Momiji, it’s okay. If things hadn’t turned out that way, we probably wouldn’t be where we are now. I was having trouble with a bad case of mental lockdown back then anyway - I was over-prepared for meeting you and just kinda… shut down.”** I admitted. She walked over to me and reached up to start straightening my hair around with a happy smile peeking through her thick blush.  **“Yesterday morning, I didn’t have any time to mentally prepare, which didn’t give me any time to develop inhibitions, so I’ve been able to talk with you comfortably ever since. I guess I just needed a little tiny push or something.”**   
  
**“Silly man, did you really look forward to meeting me that much?”** She asked. I simply nodded then kept still while she fiddled with my hair. She sighed, but smiled.  **“Well, here I am, so now what are you going to do?”**   
  
**“Love you, of course~!”** I said plainly, resting my forearms upon her shoulders. She looked gobsmacked for a moment, but turned red and seemed to fold her presence into mine on some unseen metaphysical layer, as if exposing herself to me as one does when they’re pursuing comfort.  **“I don’t know that I’ll be able to do much, but I want to be someone you can count on. If you want to guard the mountain, I want to help. If you want to start a farm, I want to help. If you want to conquer the world, I want to help. It would be nice if I can earn the mutual form of that where you would like to help** **_me_ ** **with things that** **_I_ ** **would like to do, but for now, I’m not worried about that. I’m just excited to be here with you now and don’t care about much else.”** I said. She stopped fussing with my hair as I spoke, then suddenly her expression shifted and she tilted her head downward and promptly bashed her forehead against my chest with enough force to shove the wind out of me, then held onto me tightly like I were her only flotation device in a stormy sea. I coughed and tried to catch my breath, but embraced her as strongly as I dared. She stayed quiet for a couple moments, then spoke timidly.   
  
**“Am I really that special to you..?”** she asked into my shirt, so quiet I could barely hear her.

 

**“Yes.”** I said. It was all I spoke, as it was all that I felt needed to be said, but there was more of what I intended to communicate, and I did so with my arms, holding her tight to me to tell her that I would give myself entirely to her. She stayed still for a very long time, and finally opened up to me again.

 

**“All of my life, I’ve worked hard toward a life of servitude to Lord Tenma. There was a rare occasion where I wished for some amount of acknowledgement or recognition for things I had done or might do in the future - I would catch myself with a selfish desire to be shown personal gratitude and appreciation, and have to remind myself that it wasn’t something befitting the life I had pursued.”** She said, her tone slowly becoming a forced calm and collected as she tried to become relaxed in my arms. She raised her face to look up at mine, and she wore an expression that was laced with sadness and loneliness. I could tell by that expression that she was not the sort to complain or open up about her troubles like this, so this was a rare opportunity that I didn’t want to squander. I continued to show her my fullest attention, and she resumed speaking, though her expression quavered slightly and I could see her eyes start to water as she did so.  **“My mother has been dissatisfied with my choice, my father didn’t really care much because my brothers were his priority, and while I work well with my peers, I don’t really have a good social rapport with them. Lord Tenma doesn’t really seem to think much of me beyond what I contribute to the military strength of the tengu and the security of the mountain - I’m just a pawn, like I had worked hard to become…”** she said, and trailed off as her expression started to collapse entirely, tears beginning to roll down her cheeks. I very gently brought my forehead to hers and embraced her warmly - I had no idea she had put herself through this sort of thing, but I could very easily empathize with what she was feeling as I was very familiar with it myself. She needed to express herself, and a safe harbor to do so in was probably the best thing for her right now, so I put myself around her like a fortress. She pulled her forehead away from mine and buried her face back into my chest, gripping my sides and pulling herself against me just as she suddenly broke down in my arms.   
  
**“Momiji…”** I said very softly, and rubbed my palm against her back while bringing my other to cradle the back of her head. She cried loudly, and I felt the front of my shirt grow damp. Eventually, once she had spilled herself onto my shirt for a short while, she started to speak again through occasional sobs.

 

**“Kit, I’ve just been so very lonely… I don’t mean to complain, because I’ve had a great life so far and I’m thankful to everyone… but I’ve been so lonely!”** she lamented loudly.  **“A-and then… you show up out of nowhere like this? You’ve showered me with affection and compliments and freely given them to me with no expectation of anything in return? I don’t know how to take this, Kit… How am I supposed to just go back to a normal life knowing that there’s someone out there who treats me like this? I thought I had accepted it and was content with my life devoid of such luxuries like love and personal relationships… so what am I supposed to do…? I don’t want you to leave, Kit…!”** she said and raised her head to look at me with furrowed brows and tear-streaked cheeks. I used my thumb to wipe her cheeks clear and spoke to her very calmly and softly.

 

**“I don’t want to leave either, Momiji. If I can help it, I’m not planning on leaving you. As for what to do, for now, just let your feelings freely work themselves out - use me for it if you like. It sounds like you’ve a lot built up. Afterward, things will make more sense again, and we can figure out what to do from there. Personally, I don’t think we really have to do much of anything differently - there’s no reason you can’t continue working hard for the duty life you’ve earned, and while I don’t know the specifics, I think it would be okay for me to continue attending your home life, hopefully still as your boyfriend…”** I said slowly. I thought for a moment, then decided to help her solidify something, and switched tact to speak in a more certain tone.  **“Momiji, I won’t leave you. Even if I have to go back where I came from, we’ll still be partners. You said it yourself yesterday. I am yours - and if I may be so bold as to say you are mine, then I shall. I understand that at the end of the day, you belong to Lord Tenma and that’s where your loyalty rests, but for as long as it doesn’t interfere with that, please allow me to consider you mine…”**

 

**“A-ah…”** she uttered in quiet surprise as she turned a bright red. Her hands slipped from my sides to fiddle between the two of us.  **“M-my… um... “** She started, her eyes wandering all over the room before she suddenly stood on her toes and planted her lips upon mine. We held together like this for a long moment, and when she pulled away, she had calmed down considerably.  **“P-please do…”** she finally said. I smiled and rubbed my nose to hers in glee.

 

**“Then I shall~!”** I said. She sniffled, then laughed lightly as another set of tears rolled down her cheeks. I wiped them away with both of my hands and held her cheeks in my palms. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheeks against my hands and hummed merrily. Her tail brushed quite broadly from side to side.  **“My lovely Momiji~”** I mused soothingly and moved to kiss her forehead, keeping her soft cheeks cradled between my palms.   
  
**“My wonderful Kit~”** she replied, quietly and sweetly, with closed eyes.   
  
**“A-ah…”** I let slip, unintentionally. Momiji opened one eye mischievously.

 

**“Feels weird, doesn’t it?”** she said playfully with a smirk.

 

**“Um… yeah, it really does, hee… but I think it’s nice, so I could get used to it~”** I said as she stood up straight and brought her face out of my hands with a chuckle. She stretched again and draped her arms across my shoulders, looking up at me.   
  
**“Well… thank you. Sorry to have unloaded that on you, I’m really not like that usually…”** she said, starting to relax.  **“I’m sure I could have kept on, but it just feels so out of place for me to be like that.”**   
  
**“I can tell, so no worries. And it’s really fine anyway - if you need to express yourself to someone, I’d like it if you feel comfortable thinking of me as someone you can go to.”** I said. Her expression relaxed and she gave a calming, warm smile.

 

**“Sure - isn’t that part of a boyfriend’s job anyway~?”** she said, her smile becoming a wry grin, showing off her pointed teeth.   
  
**“I suppose it could be, heh. Is my girlfriend okay with doing the same in return~?”**

 

**“Have I not done so already?”**

 

**“Fair point.”** I said. **“Shall we begin cleaning, then?”**

 

She looked around for a moment. It was dark in her home, but my eyes had grown accustomed to it already, so I did the same. We had a long day of work ahead of us and needed to start early. **“Yes, let's. All these copies of the Bunbunmaru can be thrown out, the tatami need to be taken out and cleaned, and we can probably wash the furniture while the tatami's out.”**

 

**“Yes ma'am! I'll start gathering the old newspapers, if you'll get a basin of water prepared.”** I said, then paused for a moment, looking at the newspapers. Momiji looked at where my gaze lay.

 

**“You know, I probably still have a copy of that article, if you want to read it.”** She said. Without looking up, I replied.

 

**“I was wondering exactly that - it's a pain to work for what's already available, but I think Shameimaru-san makes a decent point.”** I looked to Momiji. **“I should make an effort to contribute to life here and use my own money to buy a copy. It will be an exercise of my willingness and effort around here, y'know?”**

 

She simply grinned, then rubbed her face and smacked her own cheeks. **“Let's get to it, then!”**

 

**“Yes!”**

 

**= = = = = = = = = =**

 

And so we spent the next several hours scrubbing and hauling and cleaning. By the time we were finished, her belongings were all cleaned and organized, her tatami were dust- and dirt-free, but we were filthy with sweat and grime. A cool breeze was coming up the side of the mountain, so I took a moment to enjoy it by the river.

 

**“Whew…”** I said, straightening my back and wiping my brow. **“I could really go for a shower now.”**

 

**“Shower?”** she queried, curious.

 

**“Yeah, you know, stand under a flow of water to scrub clean?”**

 

**“Oh, we have bath houses, onsen, and the rivers. There's the waterfall just over there, if you please!”** she said innocently.

 

**“Uh… well, I'm not used to getting clean in such places, but if it's my only option I should probably fashion a pair of bathing shorts.”** I said, in the interest of my modesty.

 

**“Bathing shorts?”**

 

**“Well yeah, if I'm living with a girl and bathing literally right there…”** I gestured to the general direction of the waterfall outside, **“I should have the decency to make sure I'm doing so in a way that's comfortable for both of us.”**

 

She suddenly laughed.

 

**“What's so funny?”** I said firmly. She just responded with another laugh. **“Did I say something stupid again?”**

 

**“Yes, haha~! You're one of those who doesn't partake in skinship, aren't you?”**

 

 **“Uh… no. Where I'm from, bathing with others is heavily frowned upon. So no.”** I said flatly, then pursed my expression. She looked about to laugh again, then her expression changed to one of mischief.

 

**“I don't know what you're thinking, but please don't?”** I stated preemptively. I wasn't one to enjoy mischief at what surely seemed to be intended at my expense. Unfortunately, my attempt to dissuade mischief seemed to serve only to goad it on, as she suddenly stepped forward, putting her shoulder to my middle, wrapping her arms around my back, and hoisting me into the air like a bag of rice. **“This is the opposite of don't! This is do, which in case you were unaware, is not don't!”** I objected as she took two steps to the river, making clear her intent just a mere moment before she hurled me toward the center of the river with a shocking amount of strength. Out of instinctual desperation, my hands reached out to grab anything which might prevent my trajectory – the only thing in range was Momiji herself, so both of my hands locked around her wrist, like a cat latching onto anything it can just before it's tossed into… well, a river.

 

Inexplicably, this did not halt my trip into the river. With a force that felt like my arms would tear off, Momiji was hauled into the air as well. **“Hey, let gooo!”** she complained far too late. Time distended again – I really did not wanna get wet. Momiji was firm in my unwitting grasp – she had hurled me with enough force to lift herself off the ground with me due to my unaccounted-for grab.

 

Into the water we went.

 

We both struggled to get out, but I kept pulling her back in if she got ahead of me, and she'd toss me back in if I got ahead of her. And then she started trying to take my kimono off.

 

**“Well you wanted to get clean, haha~!”** she joked as her hands undid my obi.

 

**“Wha! Hey, I don't need help!”** I objected loudly.

 

**“Gotta get used to skinship eventually!”** she mused, working her arms from behind me to coil around my chest and down my sides.

 

**“M-momiji!”**

 

**“I need to wash too, so we may as well, you know.”**

 

**“But-"**

 

**“If it helps, I won't look – just get clean and get used to not being able to bathe alone.”** She said, a lot more quietly. I spent several minutes contemplating, at least, until she started undressing behind me.

 

**“Woah wait!”** I objected.

 

**“Nope! And don't think about escaping, you'll just make things worse for yourself.”** She stated with a faint edge of being threatening, reminding me that I was her human and had best follow her instructions if I cared about my wellbeing.

 

**“Y-yes… ma'am…”** I slid into the water up to my neck and begrudgingly slid my kimono off my shoulders, but held onto it, unsure what to do with it. Momiji's yukata suddenly flew through the air over my head and landed on the smooth stones of the bank with a splat. Hesitantly, I did the same with my kimono, the plain grey blending into the stones near Momiji's yukata.

 

**“See, that's not so bad.”** She said a mere instant before I felt both her palms slide upon my back, causing me to start and turn around. She was submerged to her collarbone in the water, and her hair lay flat due to water, but her wet face was cute and calming enough to let me forget the specifics of the scene for a moment.

 

**“I… suppose not. Getting out will be a problem, though.”**

 

**“Nah. Just don't look, silly.”** She said, and casually waded closer. She looked very different with wet hair. I couldn't see below the water's surface, and took solace in the fact that she couldn't either. I gingerly extended my hands toward her upper arms until my palms landed on her smooth but firm skin. Her expression softened as she moved closer still.

 

**“Not too close, please…”** I said. I worried for my modesty at this point.

 

**“I know…”** she said quietly, her hands hooking onto my elbows.

 

**“Hey, Momiji? Do you think we jumped into this a bit fast?”** I spoke hesitantly, bringing up a serious concern I had picked up. I knew more or less how and why things came to be as they are, but many people might complain about our pacing.

 

**“Has no one ever told you to pursue what you enjoy? I enjoy your company, so I’m acting in favor of that interest.”** she responded matter-of-factly.

 

**“…Huh. Well, that certainly simplifies my worry into insignificance, heh.”**

 

**“Worried about it being reckless? Worried about what others will think?”** she said, reminding me of someone who said I was easy to read. I hoped I would become a little harder to read before I started seeing combat, as tended to be inevitable with residency in Gensokyo.

 

**“Yeah. It's like you say - I've pursued something I enjoy. Someone I enjoy, rather.”** I sighed, as I thought further on what I had just been reminded of. **“Though there's someone whom will be thoroughly let down by this turn of events, and I don't look forward to that news being discovered eventually.”**

 

Momiji's expression soured, at it well should have for me bringing up the topic. **“The bookworm?”** she said shortly.

 

**“…Yeah. She… developed a romantic attraction toward me even despite knowing of my interest in you. I think of her as a friend rather than romantically, but she did watch me apparently die right in front of her, and I presently think it would not be in my best interests to approach the Human Village, as I may have unwittingly made them react unfavorably toward outsiders due to my first two visits.”** I said quietly and carefully. She regarded me in silence for a few moments, long enough for me to become self-conscious. We were both at eye-level with one another, and she was giving me a piercing stare, as if trying to determine the colour of my soul. I simply took the time to gently regard her with adoration. After a time, she sighed and softened her expression.

 

**“I almost want to be angry, but I find myself having to make up excuses to justify it…”** she said, and lowered her chin below the water.

 

**“I can understand. Even though I had no way of knowing things would turn out so well, I'll still apologize. I just want to be honest with you, y'know?”**

 

She smiled softly before her lips also disappeared below the water. She lent me a look of affection with an upward gaze. I carefully leaned forward and lowered further into the water, seeking to be level with her in an environment where the act was comfortable. She started to sidle closer, slipping her arms slowly around my back and moving for an embrace. She was warm in the cold mountain water, but I hadn't forgotten that we were both unclothed in the water, so I let my hands slide to rest at her waist and kept her from getting too close. I could tell she had started to grin beneath the water's surface, but she raised a bit to speak.

 

**“Relax~"** she said, pushing forward suddenly enough to slip between my hands and press herself completely against me, from top to bottom. All at once, we were in total contact, and I froze. The sensation of her elaborate form asserted against me meant the invitable was already in progress. Just then, she spoke again. **“I know the mere thought is enough for you, let alone something like this… but I want to get you comfortable with me before we allow ourselves that luxury… I could tell last night even through your rather intense desire that you were struggling with panic, so this is important.”** Her tone was soft and kind like it had been the night before. It was calming and warm, so I smiled and emptied my mind, embracing her gently.

 

**“Sorry, I wasn't exactly aware of it as panic…”** I admitted. Indeed, I was too preoccupied with contemplating how to handle my desires the night prior, but I somehow felt she was right. If it were the case, I definitely should take her advice and accept her consideration.  **“Thank you, Momiji.”**

 

**“Of course~! Can't have you shaking like an autumn leaf when we actually pursue the luxury, now can we?”** she said, putting a hand on my diaphragm. **“Just relax… and let me relax too.”**

 

I nodded, and took her advice. I calmed my breathing, and allowed myself to draw the gentle but strong wolf against me, a hand to the small of her back. It was a challenge, but I tried to keep my desires calm and quieted too, finding unexpected success after gently bringing my forehead to hers. Just as I had finally relaxed enough to start properly getting accustomed to Momiji's body, we both froze as we heard the click of a camera from the nearby bush. Momiji paled, then shouted and pushed me away with enough force that my body parted the river in twain for several meters. The sudden force and friction of that much water made my skin feel like it would peel off. At least I was undeniably clean now. By the time I had surfaced from the now-muddy and turbulent river, my vision was filled with bullets and violence, so I kept mostly submerged in the water. I don't know how long the battle raged, but it was intense and serious, so I made like a stone in the river – out of sight and out of mind. Eventually, the crow beat a hasty escape, leaving a thoroughly exhausted and flushed wolf.

 

Unfortunately, the event put Momiji in such a foul mood that she only spared me an irritated grumble before demanding that I turn around so she could leave the river, to which I silently and quickly obliged. She was not in a mood to be trifled with, and I could tell that I would not be spared her wrath if I made myself a nuisance. After a slammed door, I considered it safe to relax for a few more moments. I waited long enough that the river ran clear again before she came back out to tell me it was fine to leave the river and come in to wrap in a blanket while my kimono dried. I contemplated the safest way to go about it, and decided to fetch the drenched kimono, wring it dry a bit, then wrap it about myself as I exited the river and retreated to Momiji's home. There was a folded, freshly-cleaned blanket sitting on the kitchen counter, so once again I found myself fashioning a makeshift toga of sorts then taking my kimono back outside to hang on the poles that were still set up.

 

With a sigh, I stood barefoot upon the smooth river rocks, and looked around at the area surrounding Momiji's humble burrow. It was a nice little spot, mostly covered by tall trees, with the gentle sounds of the nearby waterfall making a homey little bubble of peace and tranquility that seemed to belong solely to miss Inubashiri. Getting an idea for later, I head inside again and look for her.

 

**“Hey, um… honey?”** I said, still feeling out the usage of the affectionate address for her. **“Sorry for kinda asserting myself a bit yesterday, but… if you eventually think it'd be fine for me to think of this as my home too, could I make a workshop and the like somewhere close by?”** I said with a bit of volume while I looked for her. **“I'd like to work and pull my own weight around here so I'm not a burden, y'know?”**

 

Silence was my response. Rather, near silence, since there were subtle sounds from the bedroom.

 

**“Honey?”** I said very quietly, peeking carefully into the bedroom. She was sitting cross-legged in the centre of the futon, in a freshly-cleaned bedroom. She looked tired and stressed, so I quietly stepped in and lay near her. I didn't say anything more, she seemed to be taking a quiet time to calm down, and I shouldn't disturb her too much if I can help it.

 

After a long while, she sighed ever so quietly and reached over to gently run her fingers through my hair, asking me closer without saying a word, and I gladly obliged her. She kept at this for a considerable time, but then she simply spoke.

 

**“Yes, do whatever you need to for a comfortable life here. I think things will be much nicer with you around, so it's okay for you to think of it as your home too.”**

 

 **“Really…?”** I asked without much thought.

 

**“Well, sure.”** She replied, smiling sweetly. **“You already help me a lot in ways I never thought could be helped, and I already decided that I want to keep you… eheh.”**

 

**“Oh, well that's good then, because I was hoping you'd keep me around for a little while longer.”** I joked. Her mood lightened a bit, so I gave her a pleasant smile. She broke into a toothy smile as well, and covered her face to tip over onto the futon when she noticed her own merriment. **“Hey, don't hide..! You're too cool to hide away~!”**

 

She sat up again and playfully hit me. **“I’m not hiding, you silly human!”** My arm had become rather sore from yesterday and today, but it meant she was feeling a little better, I supposed.  **“I’m just tired, I guess.”**

 

**“Well, it’s been a long day, so I suppose that’s not surprising.”** I replied, tipping onto my back upon the futon. Momiji moved over and leaned slightly over me to look down at my face.   
  
**“You’re a weird human.”** she said matter-of-factly. I raised my brow, looking at her without moving my head.   
  
**“We’ve already established this.”**   
  
**“I know, it’s just… somehow it keeps catching me off guard?”** she admitted.

 

**“Eh?”** I turned my head a bit to look at her straight, and thought for a moment. Before long, I moved my head back to where it had been.  **“I see.”**

 

**“Hey, um... Kit?”** Momiji asked quietly after a long few moments of silence. Her tone said that she was asking for simple attention rather than preparing to ask a follow-up question.

 

**“Hm?”** I replied, looking to her again.

 

**“I'm sorry.”** She said, bowing her head deeply. She didn't provide any context to her apology and didn't seem as though she were going to continue, so I propped myself up.   
  
**“Sorry? What could you possibly be apologizing to me for?”** I asked, genuinely confused.

 

**“For everything the last hour. Throwing you into the river, shoving you like that when Aya showed up, and baring my fangs at you when leaving the river…”** she said, looking sincere.   
  
**“Ah. I understood why things went the way they did, but… apology accepted~”** I said, trying to be gentle. I lightly put my palm to her cheek and smiled pleasantly. She sighed and very noticeably relaxed, and I figured that she must have been worried about how I’d respond. After a moment, she flopped backwards onto the futon - then casually laid her legs across me. I debated making a silly scene of it, but decided instead to idly pat her shin with both of my hands.   
  
**“I’m tired.”** she said plainly toward the ceiling, not responding to my hands on her shin. I looked over at the lantern, flickering away and illuminating the bedroom, then over at her wardrobe.   
  
**“Maybe we should just call it a day? This is way earlier than I would normally go to bed, but I guess you’re an early riser.”** I posited. I wasn’t tired mentally, but I was physically exhausted from the day’s work. She lifted one of her legs and idly prodded at my side with her foot.   
  
**“We still haven’t had dinner…”** she lightly whined.   
  
**“There’s some rice left from lunch, and I could make some more?”** I offered. She sighed, and her leg flopped across my midsection again.   
  
**“All I have is rice, and a few crops in the garden above…”** she mumbled, then raised both of her legs and both of her arms into the air suddenly.  **“I want some meat!”**

  
**“Where can we get some?”** I asked.   
  
**“Eh?”** she responded dully, lifting her head to look at me from over her chest after dropping her limbs.   
  
**“Where can we get some meat?”** I repeated awkwardly. Her head dropped back onto the futon.   
  
**“Uhh… we can buy it from the markets, or we can hunt for it from the forests. I’m terrible at hunting, so unless you can hunt, the markets are where we get it.”** she said tiredly.   
  
**“I can fish, and I’ve accompanied family for hunting, but I’ve never done any hunting myself, sorry…”** I apologized.   
  
**“Market it is, then, for our meat.”** she said, then sighed loudly.  **“It’s too late tonight to go buy some.”** I laughed lightly, then sat up, giving her shin another pat.   
  
**“I’ll go warm up the rice for dinner.”** I lifted her legs up, extracted myself from under them, and gently set her legs down on the futon. Looking over at her face, she was just watching me, her somewhat blank expression bearing a faint hint of curiosity. I smiled from the merriment of being in the presence of someone I admired - and almost as if it were contagious, she grinned. Then quickly rolled onto her side and hid her face into the futon as soon as she noticed what had happened. With a laugh, I stood up.  **“I need to borrow the lantern for a bit - don’t fall asleep without dinner~”**   
  
**“Mrrmrfrfn.”** I don’t know what she said, but it was all I got from her as a response. Like I said I would, I stepped over her and grabbed the lantern, then went to the kitchen and made dinner. She didn’t have much - plain rice and some tubers. All we were having tonight was rice, just as we had for breakfast and lunch. It wasn’t long to prepare, so I brought it to the table and walked to the bedroom door to peek in quietly. She hadn’t moved.   
  
**“Momiji, dinner is ready~”** I said, somewhat quietly. She didn’t move - just when I was convinced she had fallen asleep and was going to turn to have dinner by myself so she could rest, she inhaled deeply, stretched a bit, and sat up, rubbing at her face. She turned to look at me with an exhausted expression that told me she was definitely asleep and was trying to process everything.   
  
**“Ah, alright, I’m up. Did it turn out?”**   
  
**“Turn out? You mean the rice?”** I asked, as the way she asked left me confused a bit.   
  
**“Huh?”** she responded, and took almost a full minute to reach her actual reply.  **“Uh, yeah… the rice.”** she finally finished, rubbing her face again. I laughed a bit and stepped into the room to help her stand up.   
  
**“Yes, hun, the rice turned out fine. Let’s eat so you can get into your pyjamas and back to sleep~”**   
  
**“Yeah… I’m really tired, sorry.”** she murmured as I walked with her to the low table, where we both took a seat and grabbed our bowls of food. She autonomously clasped her hands together, just as she had done during previous meals, and mumbled.  **“Thanks for the food~”** The meal itself went by in silence - she was far too sleepy for chatter, and I grew tired myself as I ate - then our bowls were empty before we really noticed. We both cleaned the table quietly, returned to the bedroom, and while she changed into her night robes, I sturdily fashioned my blanket toga around myself to reduce the likelihood of it falling off while we slept, then we both haphazardly flopped onto the futon in completely separate places, heaving tired sighs.   
  
After a couple moments, I sat up a bit to turn off the lantern.   
  
**“G’night, Momiji~”** I said very quietly, just in case she had already fallen asleep. I couldn’t see anymore, but I suddenly heard the rustling of cloth nearby, and a brief moment later, one of Momiji’s hands was delicately tugging my arm away from my chest, and then she was nestling herself into my side. I smiled into the inky blackness of the room and held her gently to me.  **“I love you, and hope you sleep well~”** I said into the top of her head, which had found it’s way to my chest. A tired but merry coo was her response as she happily nestled more strongly against me. After a significant delay, a very, very quiet reply came forth onto my chest.   
  
**“I love you too…”** she breathed. And within moments, she was sound asleep… as evidenced by the impressive snoring.   
  
It was quite some time more before I was able to get to sleep myself - her warmth and the irregularity of her snoring kept me awake until she repositioned herself away from me in her sleep and was muffled by hugging a pillow to her face… and then I too, was asleep.   
  
...for what felt like only ten to fifteen minutes.   
  
I awoke to sunlight streaming into the room, the clear sound of a box fan near my head, and subtle tones of my best friend listening to an audiobook on his phone in the next room, interrupted occasionally by the well-known SFX of him playing Skyrim at the same time.   
  
I was in my own bed. Alone again. The scent of Momiji faded quickly from my nose, the sound of her raucous snoring gone from my ears. My brain felt as though it were rotating rapidly inside of my skull, but I could clearly remember her touch, her voice, the brilliant, unnatural ruby of her eyes, and the alabaster of her hair. I kept my eyes closed for quite a long while more, and hoped beyond hoping that I might return to sleep and go back to her side, but eventually I knew that it was futile, so I opened my eyes.   
  
The spinning of my brain stopped immediately, racking my vision and balance with immense dizziness for a few seconds, but as soon as it went away, I turned around and opened my computer to quickly write down a series of notes on what I had just experienced, because it was far too important for me to just let slip by. I came up with a proper set of guidelines on how to approach note-taking in case such experiences happened in the future, since this was the third time such a thing had happened… and then I got up to take care of my own needs, later returning to write what would later be this text you’re reading now, hoping that there would be more to write after it, too.

**Author's Note:**

> To be determined, I guess.
> 
> Entry 4 is in-progress, and there are many more entries to come.
> 
> Over 70 entries and counting.
> 
> Rip me.


End file.
